A new £800m research agency dreamed up by Dominic Cummings will be exempt from transparency laws because there is 'too much public interest' in how it spends its money.
The Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) will be able to keep its work secret from the public, and won't have to comply with Freedom of Information Laws.
Tom Brake, Director of Unlock Democracy asked Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng to set out the justification for the secrecy.
In response, an official from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said: "Despite its size, ARIA will be very much in the public eye. we expect the number of FOI requests to be disproportionate to its size and therefore inhibiting."
Confirming the launch of the body in the Queen's Speech, the government said it would be given "broad powers to take an innovative approach to research funding, and a mandate for higher tolerance for failure when pursuing high-risk research”.
And Mr Cummings suggested at a Committee hearing earlier this year that it should be run by four or five people with complete control over decision making.
He said they should have "good taste in scientific ideas and scientific researches”.
Mr Brake said: "BEIS's honesty is as astonishing as it is shocking. Their justification for excluding Aria from FOI amounts to 'because of Aria's work there will be many FOI requests and this will be inhibiting'.
“I have drawn this to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) who have already made it clear there is no justification for the exemption.
“I have asked the ICO to confirm that 'FOI requests will generate lots of work and we won't be able to do what we want in secret' is not a reason to exclude a public organisation from FOI laws."
Last month, the ICO said they did not believe the exemption from transparency laws was justified.
Mr Brake asked the ICO "whether ... the Government has provided any justification for this proposed exemption."
The ICO replied that it held "no information."
But they said: “We do not believe FOI and EIR legislation to be an obstacle to innovation and research because they already embed safeguards which allow a balance to be struck between the public interest in transparency and the protection of legitimate interests, where this is needed.”
They added: “Access to information is an essential component of a democratic society and our Outsourcing Oversight report clearly showed the risks to transparency and accountability when public information is removed from the scrutiny offered by access to information law."
A BEIS spokesperson said: “ARIA will be an independent body with unique freedoms given to scientists – not ministers - to identify and fund cutting-edge research that could transform people’s lives for the better.
“As the Bill makes clear, ARIA will be subject to scrutiny by the National Audit Office, accountable to Select Committees and Parliament, required to submit an annual report and statement of accounts, and will have powers to introduce conflict of interest procedures to provide strong assurance of good governance.”
