That distills down to the argument between exclusions and exemptions in terms of some of these things. We're open to your views as a committee on this. There are different models with their strengths and weaknesses around this exclusion versus the exemption policy. There are clear areas, including security, national security issues, and privacy issues among them where we would all agree on where there has to be either an exemption or an exclusion depending on that. The question is, to what extent can the Information Commissioner have access to cabinet confidences and then discern from there, or whether there should be absolute exclusions in certain areas, such as around national security.
I think there would be broad consensus that exclusions can make a lot of sense. There are different models and the wheelhouse of this committee, as you're studying some of those, would be interested. What I would ask for in terms of your advice—and I'm not trying to direct the work of the committee, but it would be helpful in terms of some of these models—is what you see as the strengths and the weaknesses. Put some thought to that, and the researchers as well, in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of some of these models. A witness may say “I like this particular model”, but the work of the committee and the library as you look at them, is what are the strengths granularly and what are the weaknesses? That can help inform our line of thinking as well.