Freedom of Information: your task

DO YOUR bit to support Freedom of Information. The government's woefully inadequate Bill is due to be debated again in the House of Lords towards the end of May. The following Lords are members of the NUJ, and you can write to them reminding them of the importance of freedom of information to journalism and thus to democracy. (Sorry we haven't been able to get a list of who voted which way in previous debates.)

Write to the following names at House of Lords, London SW1A 0AA: Michael Killanin, William Howie, John Kilbracken, Patrick Lichfield, Lena Jeger, Roy Hattersley, Anthony Snowdon, and George Thomson.

The following MPs are members of the NUJ. Letters from constituents carry much more weight than generic appeals, so if one is your constituency MP, please get in touch with them now...

Member	Constituency	Party
Candy Atherton	Falmouth and Camborne	Lab
Margaret Beckett C	Derby South	Lab
Bell, Martin §	Tatton	Ind
Tony Benn §	Chesterfield	Lab
Ben Bradshaw	Exeter	Lab
Gordon Brown C	Dunfermline East	Lab
Malcolm Bruce	Gordon	LDem
Ann Clwyd	Cynon Valley	Lab
Robin Corbett §	Birmingham, Erdington	Lab
John Cryer	Hornchurch	Lab
Angela Eagle	Wallasey	Lab
Norman Fowler	Sutton Coldfield	Con
Roger Gale	North Thanet	Con
Bruce Grocott	Telford	Lab
Gerald Kaufman	Manchester, Gorton	Lab
Sally Keeble	Northampton North	Lab
Shona McIsaac	Cleethorpes	Lab
Alan Meale	Mansfield	Lab
Austin Mitchell §	Great Grimsby	Lab
Chris Mullin §	Sunderland South	Lab
Brian Sedgemore	Hackney South and Shoreditch	Lab
Paul Truswell	Pudsey	Lab
Rosalie Winterton	Doncaster Central	Lab
Derek Wyatt	Sittingbourne and Sheppey	Lab
In addition, Denis MacShane (Rotherham, Lab) is an ex-President of the NUJ.
All at House of Commons, London SW1A 1AA C = Cabinet Minister: pigs might fly § = Strong supporter of Freedom of Information For full briefings on the Bill see the Campaign for Freedom of Information website at www.cfoi.org.uk. Other MPs who wish to correct the Freelance's memory, providing evidence that they are strong supporters, are very, very welcome to write to editor@londonfreelance.org.

May/Jun 2000

Freedom of Information index