FOI Royals Exemption

Dear Sir or Madam,

The following proposal appeared in the PMs statement last week on
rebuilding the constitution -

'As the [Dacre] report recommended, we have considered the need to
strengthen protection for particularly sensitive material and there
will be protection of Royal Family ..papers.'

This was in response to the recommendatin in the Dacre Review which
read -

'We therefore recommend that, in parallel with the adoption of a 15
year rule, the government, in consultation with interested parties,
may wish to consider whether there is a case for enhanced
protection of such categories of information.'

Please disclose the relevant consultations.

Yours faithfully,

Franc McLaughlin

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for your reply. I wish to you to carry out an internal
review of the case, having regard to the following points.

If you have to weigh the public interest in relation to the section
35 exemption, that must mean there could be cases where the public
interest would be in disclosure, despite the exemption being
engaged. Your argumentation does not seem to demonstrate why this
is not one of those cases. You don't seem to have demonstrated how
the public interest in protecting the information outweighs the
public interest in disclosure.

Similarly in relation to the section 37 exemption, it is not
apparent that your arguments would ever allow for disclosure. There
are special considerations here in that the subject of the
exchanges was about the convention itself. On the one hand,
therefore, it was a step removed from the generality of exchanges
that the convention is presumably intended to protect; and on the
other hand, since it was a strategic issue about the convention
itself, then there is surely a particularly strong interest in
transparency, to demonstrate that the convention and the exemption
are being sensibly applied and protected.

In regard to the section 41 exemption, I am puzzled as to who you
allege might take legal action.

I trust your review will consider impartially consider all aspects
of the case in addition to the arguments that occur to me.

Yours faithfully,

Franc McLaughlin