Brighton Pavilion MP calls for greater transparency and accountability in big business with new FOI powers

Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion and leader of the Green party of England and Wales, has proposed that Freedom Of Information (FOI) legislation be extended to banks, telecomms operators and other large corporations providing key services to the public.

Speaking to delegates at the party's spring conference in Cardiff, Caroline said: "We depend on these corporations in just the same way as we depend on schools or hospitals to deliver our local services.

"When they fail, we all suffer - so they must be opened up to public scrutiny. That's why I'm proposing that the current FOI act be extended to cover major corporations."

Under the proposal, the Information Commissioner would be given powers to determine classes of information that companies would have to publish, such as risk registers, payment to sub contractors, or tax payments made overseas.

The Pavilion MP believes that this would be quicker and more flexible than the current situation, where extra disclosure requirements on businesses have to be enacted by parliament in primary legislation - which can take years.

"The public would not make requests directly to companies, as with FOI for government," she says, "to avoid creating an administrative burden for businesses.

"Instead, members of the public could make requests to the Information Commissioner to add to the classes of info that major companies must release.

"This would help people see the impact - good or bad - which companies have on our economy and society: anything from their employment policies to cases of charging excess profits from their poorest customers.

"Well run companies would have a good story to tell; badly performing ones would be shamed into mending their ways.

"If we had a right to ask for information - for example, about new financial instruments or lending policies - then the irresponsible policies of the banks and financial institutions might have been exposed before the crisis hit."

She concludes: "The coalition government has called for the public sector to be scrutinised by an ‘army of armchair auditors'. Extending FOI would mean not only the public but also the media and campaigning groups being given the right to scrutinise powerful corporations and so improve the way they serve their customers and society as a whole.

"No company - or government - should be afraid of such a move and I am looking for cross-party support to put this principle into law."

ENDS