Back to school

Not much time to post this week, Parliament having reassembled on Monday.

Monday I had a meeting with the head of NDI Bangladesh on the forthcoming elections in January 2007. With 14 million phantom voters on the register, the police and election officials packed with government supporters, the prospects for free and fair elections don't look too good. At least the political parties are belatedly in discussions.

Yesterday morning, Subcommittee F took evidence from Home Office officials on our current inquiry, on Schengen Information System II, an EU database that will cover a set of immigration and criminal information. The system has been delayed by 15 months because of contractor problems and will not go live until June 2008 - assuming there are no further slippages, and the UK will sign on to parts of it in 2009. No detailed explanation of the reasons for the delay have been published.

I had a question on Somalia yesterday, see below, and also fielded Caroline Cox's question on Sudan.

Today I had a meeting with counsel to discuss my appeal to the Tribunal against the Information Commissioner's ruling, that the Prime Minister should disclose only his 'official' meetings with Murdoch and Desmond, and not those concerned with party political or private matters.