I'll pass it over to John to correct me, but before the election David Cameron had set himself out to be quite an enthusiast for open data and transparency. So enthusiasm for this issue predated the possibility of a coalition. In fact it was rather interesting that in the dying days of the Labour government, as the election got under way, both then Prime Minister Gordon Brown and David Cameron were marking themselves as enthusiasts for open data.
What's interesting--and one of the reasons why it's so important in the coalition--is that in the area of transparency or openness and how it flows into civil liberties, there is agreement between large parts of the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats. This is part of an agenda they can kind of agree upon. So it was there before, but it has now become one of the linchpins around which the coalition government can be seen to agree and push forward an agenda on it.
I'll now pass over to John to give his perspective on that.