Comment & Analysis

Despite warnings that the government is running out of time to get much legislation through parliament before the next election, they have said they will pass legislation to introduce an absolute exemption for the royals from Freedom of Information laws.

Britain is currently facing twin crises, a constitutional crisis and an economic crisis. With less than 80 days of parliamentary time left, you’d think the government would have a pile of urgent business to get through. Yet one of the few measures they are committed to is tightening up royal secrecy.

At present the monarchy is not recognised as a public institution (which in itself is bizarre). The royal household is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, but there is a public interest test. That is, if it can be shown that the public interest would be served by disclosure then the Act is in favour of disclosure. If not, then the exemption applies.

The government intends to remove that public interest test, so the exemption becomes absolute. This is an extraordinary statement for any government to make. What they are saying is simply this: the public interest, in other words, the good of the nation, is secondary to the interests of the Windsor family and the government. In a democracy, public interest must always be paramount.

As an aside, the government have also told us that the law will effectively be retrospective, in that any FOI requests currently under consideration, even if they have reached as far as the courts, will suddenly be judged under the new legislation. This amounts to blanket permission to anyone considering a request to drag their feet until the law has been amended.

This is a serious issue, not just for Republic and republicans, who are trying to hold the monarchy to account, but for everyone who is concerned about good government and appropriate use of taxpayers’ money. The Windsors are active players in government, they lobby not just for their own interests, such as an increase in the Civil List, but also in the interest of others.

Charles is the main culprit here. He is actively and routinely engaged in lobbying ministers. If we complain that this is in contravention of his constitutional position monarchists (and ministers) argue: “he’s not yet King, so he has no such constitutional constraints”. When we use FOI rules to try and find out how many times he has written to ministers we’re told: “he is heir to the throne, he has a constitutional position that must be safeguarded.” Well, you can’t really have it both ways.

We believe there is a clear public interest in knowing the extent and nature of Charles’ lobbying. We all know that ‘royal’ status plays tricks on people’s good sense. Ministers (not all, but enough) pay attention to Charles for no reason other than that he is the son of the head of state. Yet we are not allowed to know what he is telling them, what level of influence he has. Given his idiosyncratic views and his complete lack of accountability, these are things we should know.

Charles is known to have lobbied to have alternative medicine paid for by the NHS, and for research paid for by the government. He is known to have lobbied on various architectural and planning issues and it is widely believed he and other royals lobbied over the fox hunting ban. All fair enough, everyone has a right to their own opinion. But given his position and the influence he has we must know whether his views are being given more weight than the general sway of public opinion. Are we governing ourselves or being pushed in certain directions by a feudal-minded prince?

Buckingham palace also lobbies the government, not least on the question of their own funding. There have been many reports in recent months on calls from the palace for a mult-million pound hike in the Civil List, just at a time when we are facing massive pressures on the public purse. We have a clear interest in knowing if our head of state is lobbying in her interests or in ours. But no, we’re told that’s none of our business.

In a statement from the Ministry of Justice we were told:

In relation to Cabinet information, and information relating to the Royal Household, it has become clear that those safeguards are insufficiently robust to protect our current constitutional arrangements, and need changing.

In short, our constitution is based on the principle of state secrecy.

Surely, rather than increasing that secrecy to protect our constitutional arrangements the government should consider reforming our constitutional arrangements in order to ensure greater openness.

Tags: alternative medicine, freedom of information, lobbying, Prince Charles

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 11:58 am and is filed under British constitution, Constitutional reform, Prince Charles, Republic & Campaigns, freedom of information. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments are now closed.