MPs Bid To End ‘Royal Secrecy’ And Open The Crown Up To Scrutiny

A Green MP is leading a bid to end the UK’s culture of ‘royal secrecy’ through a bill which would give the public powers to scrutinise the work of the crown.

Siân Berry’s bill to amend the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act, introduced this Tuesday, would end the outright exemption for the King, the heir to the throne and the “wider royal family” from the 2000-era transparency law.

Berry wants to open up the royals to Freedom of Information requests – something almost every public body is subject to and which allows researchers, journalists and the public to ask for documents in the public interest.

Section 37 of the Freedom of Information Act means the Sovereign (i.e. King Charles) and the two nearest heirs to the Throne are totally exempt from Freedom of Information requests.

There is no ‘public interest test’ that can override this. The rule also covers all communications with them, sweeping up communications with ministers and officials, even if they relate to politics and public spending.

Communications with the wider royal family are also exempt from FoI, but are subject to a public interest test – so if there is an overriding public interest in releasing, for example, communications between a minister and Prince Harry, theoretically that information could be released. However, many researchers and historians frequently find that officials block these requests too.

Royal biographer Dr Andrew Lownie, whose recent book on Andrew, Entitled, exposed wide-ranging allegations of cronyism and misconduct, told Byline Times: “From my experience — and I’ve now used this over ten years on members of the Royal Family — that public interest test has never once come down in favour of disclosure.”

He has been told material on then-Prince Andrew’s role as a trade envoy won’t be released until 2065 – a timeframe he says has no basis in law. It would be 105 years after Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s birth.

That’s despite the then-Prince’s role being officially separate to royal titles, and was instead an official Government appointment.

The Foreign Office and the Department for Business and Trade have used a scattergun of exemptions, seen by Byline Times, to block requests on who accompanied Andrew on trade trips – including claiming it would harm law enforcement, national security, health and safety, and even describing Lownie’s efforts as “vexatious.”

A separate FoI fight with Southampton University and the Cabinet Office over Lord Mountbatten’s diaries in 2021 left the historian out of pocket by £500,000 in legal costs. He eventually won his battle, but believes many times his own costs in public money were spent fighting the requests.

Even when material is released on the royals it is often heavily censored. Lownie says of the Lord Mountbatten case: “They tried to redact every single mention of the Royal Family in those three thousand pages. Really innocent stuff — ‘Prince Philip came for tea,’ ‘Princess Elizabeth had her birthday party today’ — nothing remotely sensitive.”

“They were even redacting names that had already appeared in the published version of the diaries.”

All of this was under exemptions from FoI law that Berry is now trying to undo.

Berry’s bill – which stands little chance of succeeding without Government backing – would omit section 37 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000; to “provide that the sovereign, the Royal Family, the Royal Household, the Royal Archive and the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster” are treated like any Government department or quango when it comes to FoI requests.

In 2023, researchers from Index on Censorship surveyed 28 historians and journalists about their experience requesting archive materials on the royal family – much of which is publicly-funded.

It hinted at the extent to which the Palace holds sway over every archive in the UK.

One respondent, reportedly working for the Lambeth Palace Library archives, told the anti-censorship group they were instructed, at the Royal Archives’ request, not to provide documents from the 1940s–50s related to the royals when a researcher requested them.

And the non-profit group found that a 2023 policy change at the BBC required unseen royal-related BBC material to be vetted and sensitive content relating to the royals redacted before researchers could see it, apparently after a request from ‘Royal Liaison’. It suggested a direct channel of Palace influence over the national broadcaster’s own archive.

‘Archaic Rules’

Berry told Byline Times: “Throughout the whole Andrew [Mountbatten-Windsor] saga, there was a prohibition on criticising members of the royal family in Parliament, which then got relaxed by the Speaker just ahead of him being stripped of his royal status.

“Now he’s not royal, which is why I mentioned him several times in my speech. But these are archaic rules, and we do need to treat the royal family much more like a normal public body.”

When Berry learnt about the royals’ FoI exemption, she says she was “outraged that it existed.”

Related reading: Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s Daughters Are Still Receiving Rent-Free Royal Accommodation

“I started talking to people who’d been trying to get information that way for a while, and had just hit a wall,” Berry says.

She argues the Palace authorities are “reaching out to stop other royal-related information being released, at their own discretion, in places that have nothing to do with them.”

“None of that’s right.”

The Green MP says that “knowing you’re completely protected, beyond what any other public servant is, probably doesn’t encourage good behaviour.”

Berry believes that, if materials relating to former-Prince Andrew’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein had been put in the open earlier – without the need for Parliament to issue a ‘humble address’ demanding their release – potential wrongdoing could have been prevented. Mountbatten-Windsor is currently under police investigation over allegedly leaking confidential Government documents to business associates (he denies all wrongdoing).

Commons Gagging Order

Berry, who is a republican, is also incensed by Parliament’s own rules against discussing the royals.

“We were reminded just today by the Speaker’s Office that we mustn’t criticise the current monarch…I had to make it very clear I wasn’t obliquely referring to the King, because I’m not allowed to…

“It was very, very clear I couldn’t criticise the King, or even imply it, in my speech.”

Asked if she feels hamstrung by Parliament’s limits on criticism of the royals, Berry said: “No one in Parliament likes it. The Speaker, and particularly some of the Deputy Speakers, will stand up and call “Order” and tell you off for something you’ve said – and that makes you nervous. It makes you want to hold back.

“You’ve no idea what it’s like being told off in front of the whole Chamber. The first time it happened to me…The shock of it was such a throwback, like literally being five years old and told off at school. It’s such a weird feeling.”

Related reading: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor: How Power Protects Itself Through Contempt

Outside of Parliament (itself part of the Crown Estate), Berry says the royal family is able to “curate which historians get access [to royal-linked archives] and which don’t.”

“They’re protecting the royal image right back through history, and that means we don’t have a true picture of our own history. I think that’s really wrong.”

A Call From the Palace

The issues go beyond law and into convention and culture, too.

In 2008, when she was the Green Party’s de facto leader, Berry provided a quote to the Daily Mail criticising then-Prince Charles’ air travel.

She was working at Imperial College at the time, and says she got a phone call from the Palace press office the next day “telling me off”.

“They were saying how disrespectful I was being, that I should be more grateful, that he was actually very green and was promoting organic farming and environmental causes, and that I shouldn’t be criticising him.”

She describes it as “a bit of a bollocking”.

“At one point I did say, ‘Well, I am a republican’ – because he kept going on about respect, and I said there’s a limit to how deferential I’m going to be.”

Berry’s Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Amendment) Bill has the backing of the National Union of Journalists as well as a cross-party group of MPs, including Conservative David Davis MP and Your Party leader Jeremy Corbyn MP.

The Cabinet Office, Department for Business and Trade, and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) were contacted for comment.

MPs sponsoring the Bill:

• Ian Byrne (Labour)
• Rachael Maskell (Labour)
• Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat)
• Tom Gordon (Liberal Democrat)
• Pete Wishart (SNP)
• Kirsty Blackman (SNP)
• Claire Hanna (Social Democratic & Labour Party)
• Jeremy Corbyn (Independent)
• Ellie Chowns (Green)
• Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru)
• David Davis (Conservative)

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