The first time Parliament heard the term “Freedom of Information”

…if there is one matter on which I feel more strongly than another it is that in a democratic community the foundation of good government lies in freedom of information, freedom of thought, and freedom of speech: You can not have a country, which is governed by its people, wisely and well governed, unless those people are permitted access to accurate information, and are permitted the free exchange of their views and their opinions: That is essential to good government: It is quite true that if you grant that freedom there will be abuses: It is quite true that foolish people advocate foolish views: That is one of the many unfortunate corollaries

Although the past is a foreign country, some of its citizens can seem familiar: the quotation above is from Liberal politician Sir Richard Durning Holt, and was made in a parliamentary debate seven months short of a hundred years ago. It contains the first recorded parliamentary use of the term “freedom of information”. It was said as part of a debate about conscientious objectors to the “Great War” (Holt was drawing attention to what he saw as the unfair and counter-productive prosecutions of objectors). He may not have meant “freedom of information” in quite the way we mean it now, but his words resonate, and – at a time when our own Freedom of Information Act 2000 is under threat – remain, as a matter of principle, remarkably relevant.

I found the quotation using Glasgow University’s extraordinary corpus of “nearly every speech given in the British Parliament from 1803-2005”. I commend it to you, and, a century on, commend Sir Richard’s words to Jack Straw and his fellow members on the Independent Commission on Freedom of Information.

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.