Some amendments were tabled by Mark Fisher himself and others by Simon Coombs, Conservative MP for Swindon and a parliamentary private secretary - in effect, a junior member of the government.

Most of Mr Coombs' amendments proposed to replace parts of the Bill with equivalent provisions from the Australian Freedom of Information Act, which exempts much wider bands of information. The debate therefore concentrated not on whether Britain should have FOI, but on whether any Act should go beyond the Australian model.

One group of Mr Coombs' amendments proposed that ministers should be able to issue conclusive certificates preventing the disclosure of information about defence, security, international relations and internal working documents. This would give ministers a veto over disclosure, removing the right of appeal to the Commissioner.

Mr Jackson welcomed the amendments because, he said "they highlight the way in which the Bill would remove ministerial discretion" [20.4.93, col 114]

But all other members of the Committee, including all the Conservatives present, opposed them. John Bowis (Con, Battersea) said they would undermine the purpose of the Bill: "I do not believe that a Minister should be able to produce a certificate, like in 'Alice in Wonderland' to mean what he says it means". Alan Howarth (Con, Stratford-on-Avon) said that if it was left to ministers to balance the arguments for and against disclosure on issues such as homosexuality in the armed forces "it is effectively certain that the information would be suppressed". The amendment was defeated by 12 votes to 1.

The Committee also rejected amendments which would have prevented access to medical records written before November 1991; exempted all information obtained from companies, whether or not disclosure was commercially damaging; and widened the scope of many other exemptions.

Amendments

A number of amendments were made to the Bill. These:

• would allow disabled persons to make oral instead of written applications, require authorities to make information accessible to blind applicants, and allow a representative to apply on someone's behalf;

• would allow applicants (other than those asking for personal files) to be charged a £5 application fee and commercial requesters to be charged higher fees;

• changed the test in the exemptions on defence, international relations and security - from "significant damage" to "damage".

• introduced a new exemption protecting Cabinet minutes;

• would require authorities to publicise official warnings they received about serious risks to public safety at their premises.