Without the Freedom of Information law, MPs would still be abusing their expenses, billing the taxpayer to buy second homes, the way they used to, writes Douglas Carswell MP (writes)

Can you imagine if there was no Freedom of Information law? MPs would still be abusing their expenses, billing the taxpayer to buy second homes, the way they used to. Information of legitimate interest to the public would have been kept from the public.

This newspaper has made a series of important revelations by using the FoI laws. Earlier this year, The Mail on Sunday won an FoI battle with the Cabinet Office, which was forced to release papers showing that Margaret Thatcher was personally told that police had investigated claims that paedophile politician Cyril Smith indecently assaulted teenage boys in the 1960s.

In June, the MoS used FoI laws to reveal that disgraced peer Lord Janner made secret official visits to Parliament several months after police were told he was too ill to be questioned over child abuse allegations.

In 2010, through a FoI request to a local council, the MoS revealed that a family of former asylum-seekers from Somalia are living in a £2.1 million luxury townhouse in one of Britain's most exclusive addresses at a cost to taxpayers of £8,000 a month.

If not for FoI requests by other individuals and organisations, we would not have been allowed to know about the cracks in the Hinkley Point nuclear power station. Or hospitals incinerating aborted foetuses, or the way Prince Charles lobbied Ministers.

The fact that dozens of foreign diplomats, covered by immunity, had been accused of rape, sexual assault and murder would have remained a closely guarded secret. Last week, it was thanks to the FoI that we learned that even though the Commons voted against RAF bombing raids in Syria, RAF pilots did just that in the full knowledge of David Cameron, albeit not in British planes.

A right to ask public bodies to disclose information means we know a good deal more about those who rule over us than before. Even more important, it is because we might get to know about it that Freedom of Information has kept those governing us on their toes.

Last week, it was thanks to the FoI that we learned that even though the Commons voted against RAF bombing raids in Syria, RAF pilots did just that in the full knowledge of David Cameron (pictured)

Last year, there were 120,000 FoI requests. The overwhelming majority were made by private citizens simply wanting to know what those who make the key decisions that affect their lives were up to.

Tellingly, Tony Blair says that enacting the Freedom of Information Act is one of his main regrets. Once in office, Ministers from all parties come to resent the Act. Why? Because it makes them have to constantly account for their actions.

So what are we to make of the fact that last Friday afternoon, shortly before the summer recess, Ministers quietly announced a review? A cross-party panel has been formed to examine the 'appropriate balance' between the public's right to know and the 'need for sensitive information to have robust protection'.

We should be highly suspicious.

First, look at who the Government has appointed to sit on the panel.

Perhaps Heather Brooke, an award-winning Freedom of Information campaigner whose dogged determination has caused more than a few red faces in Whitehall?

Of course not.

Journalists who have used Freedom of Information to reveal waste and duplication in government?

Not a bit of it.

Earlier this year, The Mail on Sunday won an FoI battle with the Cabinet Office, which was forced to release papers showing that Margaret Thatcher (pictured) was personally told that police had investigated claims that paedophile politician Cyril Smith indecently assaulted teenage boys in the 1960s

MoS used FoI laws to reveal that disgraced peer Lord Janner (pictured) made secret official visits to Parliament several months after police were told he was too ill to be questioned over child abuse allegations

The five-person panel will be chaired by Lord Burns, former permanent secretary at the Treasury, the quintessential 'Sir Humphrey'.

Alongside him will be former Labour Minister Jack Straw, who is already on record as saying Freedom of Information has gone too far. In 2009, as Lord Chancellor, Straw issued the first Ministerial veto against an FoI request when he blocked access to the contents of the legal advice on UK military action against Iraq.

Also on the committee will be ex-Tory leader Lord Howard, who once had Lord Bridges – the Minister overseeing the review – working for him at Conservative Party HQ.

It would be unfair to suggest that all those on the panel are the type of people who have built their careers by toadying up to the Whitehall establishment. They are, however, hardly likely to be radical advocates for extending the public's right to know what officials are up to.

Putting this lot in charge of Freedom of Information would be like putting supermarket bosses in charge of competition policy.

This cluster of grandees has been told to ensure that there is a 'safe space for policy development'. There already is. The law already allows Ministers and officials to refuse to disclose information on the basis that it relates to policy work. Indeed, I have had half a dozen Freedom of Information requests turned down on that basis. No one seriously suggests that Ministers and officials should not be allowed to consider a full range of policy options in private.

The Government's efforts to water down FoI rules are disturbing not only because of what it could mean for the relationship between the governing and the governed. It tells us something about the high-handed attitude of David Cameron's administration less than three months after it took office.

There is more than a whiff of arrogance about all this. Who do they think they are that they can change the public's right to hold Ministers to account like this? No longer constrained by the Liberal Democrats, Ministers seem to be preparing to ram through a change that would undo one of the great democratising reforms of our time. They are doing it because they can.

Despite getting a mere 37 per cent of the vote on Election day in May, Ministers are behaving as if they have 100 per cent of the power. Perhaps it will be the Commons, rather than Nick Clegg, that now needs to rise to the occasion and teach Mr Cameron about the importance of limited government.

Over the past decade, digital technology has made it far cheaper and easier to disclose information. Claiming that the costs and bother of answering FoI requests are reasons not to is nonsense. Instead of rowing back from greater disclosure, a truly modernising administration should be looking to build on the Act by making disclosure the norm. Data should be made available without members of the public having to ask for it.

It is precisely because this Government, like all governments, has reverted so rapidly to type, that we need the power to hold it to account. Information is power.