I got a letter from Black Rod - who runs both houses […] and it says that I am banned for life from the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

It's at the 7 minute 20 mark on the video - or listen to the whole thing on SoundCloud.

"Hmmm…" I wondered, "Who else has been banned from Parliament?"

TO THE BAT-FREEDOM OF INFORMATION MACHINE, ROBIN!

Using the excellent What Do They Know site, I fired off an FoI request to the House of Commons.

I quickly received this back:

The House of Commons has not banned any person, therefore does not hold this information.

I notice in your request you mention Black Rod. It may interest you to know that Black Rod is a senior officer in the House of Lords. As our response only deals with people banned by the House of Commons you may wish to consider forwarding your request to the House of Lords

Carole Fisher - Information Rights and Information Security (IRIS) Service | House of Commons

While waiting for an answer, I'd done a little research and discovered that the Suffragette Emily Wilding Davison was banned from Parliament.

The letter mentions that she should be added to the "Index Expungatoris" - a list of people banned from Parliament. (NB this is also referred to as the the "Index Expurgatorius")

I wrote to the House of Lords and specifically mentioned the "Index". Their reply was swift:

The House Administration does not hold "a list of people who have been banned from Parliament." A search has been conducted and no recorded information relevant to your request has been located.

Frances Grey - Freedom of Information Officer - House of Lords

So! There you have it. If you think that you have been banned from Parliament, it seems that they don't hold any records and you are free to enter.

✱ This does NOT constitute legal advice!

A few days ago, the Post Office - in their infinite wisdom - set their legal dogs on those running Ernest Marples.

The Post Office charges for the file that they generated which converts post codes to location.  It can cost anywhere from £1,000 to £4,000 per year to get accurate data.  That's a price that I can't afford - neither can many non-profits, startups or innovators.

"I take the position that the postcode file and the data set of physical coordinates that go with it are a national asset that should be freely available to any UK citizen"  - Tom Watson MP

The Guardian has shown that there is more economic benefit to the UK by setting this data free.

So, what can be done about it?

• Sign the petition to the Prime Minister
• Write a blog post, send a tweet, and tell your friends what’s happening!
• Call, email or fax your MP

The Royal Mail is in its death-throes. It is vital that data created and supported by public money is returned to the public before it is sold off to the highest bidder... only to be sold back to us.

The work to determine how these boundaries should be formed is done by The Boundary Commission.  They have produced a report to show how the boundaries will be set out at the next General Election.  There report - while detailed, thorough and no doubt accurate - is utterly useless.  Well, from a "linked data" perspective.  It's a 57 MB PDF if you want to see for your self.

I was expecting, along with the rationales, maps and population densities to see something like

Constituency: Woking

Ward: Mount Herman East

Postcodes: GU22 0XX, GU22 0XY, GU22 0XZ ...

Or, indeed, anything which would allow one to easily link the data to other sources.  This is what the report contains.

A Detailed Map of Surrey

While the map is pretty detailed, it doesn't contain any geo-spatial co-ordinates.  It looks like it has just been drawn by hand in ink.  There is no way to extract any information out of this map.

The also produce a list of constituencies and wards.

This is not text - it's a screen shot!

There are three problems with this.

1. It's a screen shot.  I don't mean that I've taken a screen shot, I mean that they have taken a screenshot of the text and pasted it into the report.  There is no way to copy the text out of there.
2. Even if it were possible, they don't list the Government standard codes for the wards
3. There are no postcodes or other forms of information which tie the ward to a specific place.

Gah!

So, how can I find this information?  I know! I'll write to those nice folk at Parliament

Dear Sir or Madam,

I notice that you provide a website which allows Constituency lookup from a postcode (http://findyourmp.parliament.uk/)

Do you have the data for the *new* Constituencies proposed by the Boundary Commission?

The Boundary Commission has maps of the new areas (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pbc/default.asp) but these don't have postcodes on them.

I'm happy to make an FoI request if that is your preferred way of releasing the information.

If you do not have the information - would you be able to tell me who does?

Many thanks

A few days later I got back this.

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your enquiry asking if we have the post codes for the new Constituencies proposed by the Boundary Commission.

I am afraid, the House of Commons Information Office is unable to give you a list of the post codes for the proposed "new" constituencies Boundaries. The House purchases a list of postcodes for each Parliamentary constituencies from the Office of National Statistics and the new list will not be purchased until nearer the time of the General Election when the changes in Parliamentary constituencies take effect.

You may like to contact the Office of National Statistic to see if you can purchase a list from them of the new constituencies.

Customer Contact Centre

Office for National Statistics

Room 1.015

Government Buildings

Cardiff Road

Newport

South Wales

NP10 8XG

Telephone - +44 (0) 845 601 3034

I hope this is helpful

So, off to the ONS! I took a look through their website, couldn't find what I wanted, so I emailed them.

I'm looking for some definitive data on the electoral constituencies and their comprising wards for the next general election.  That is, those incorporating the boundary changes in the Boundary Commission's Fifth periodical report.

Under "Names and codes for Electoral Geography" your document "Westminster Parliamentary Constituencies" only lists the 647 constituencies from the 2005 election.  Do you have the data for the upcoming election?

Similarly, in "Names and codes for Administrative Geography" I'm not sure if the document "Wards (Eng) Dec 2008 Names and Codes" contains the latest wards.  There also seems to be no schema to link Wards to Constituencies that I can see.

Do you hold such information?

Which sadly got back

Dear Terence,

Thank you for your recent enquiry

Please be advised that this information is currently not available. This is because current wards are split across the new boundaries and a review of these is about to be carried out which makes them subject to change.

If you have any further questions, please let me know.

So, no luck there.

Is this really so hard? All I want is to know that Postcode X is in Ward Y of Constituency Z.  It would appear that this information just isn't held anywhere. The review has been completed by the Boundary Commission but they either don't consider linked data or they don't share it. I just wish they would Set Our Data Free.

Or am I barking up the wrong tree entirely?