Dear Mr. Medawar,

Thank you for your letter commenting on the White Paper Your Right to Know, the Government's proposals for a Freedom of Information Act.

The Government is committed to Freedom of Information and believes it is important to get its proposals right first time. We are therefore very grateful to you for taking the time to look at and comment on them.

Unfortunately, as I am sure you will understand, it is not possible for me to respond to specific questions about the proposals. However, the Government will consider carefully all of the comments it receives and will use them to draw up a draft FOI Bill. The draft Bill will be published later in the year and also will be open for public consultation.

You asked in your letter for clarification on one particular point: the meaning of tile phrase "in which case the relevant specified interests will apply" in the second sentence of part 6 of paragraph 3.11 (Your Right to Know, page 18).

In considering whether to disclose information under the Act it will be necessary to assess the harm done to the specified interest (or interests) which are involved in each case. The phrase in question sought to explain that where information has been supplied in confidence because it is of a personal or commercially sensitive nature then it will be necessary to judge the potential harm to the Personal Privacy or Commercial Confidentiality specified interests as well as (or in some cases perhaps instead of) the Information Supplied in Confidence specified interest in order to decide whether the information can be disclosed.

I hope that this explains the point sufficiently and I am sorry that it was not more readily understood.

Thank you once again for your comments.

Yours sincerely

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