<\/p>\n
A Brighton MP is preparing a bill to bring the King and the royal household under the Freedom of Information Act.<\/p>\n
Si\u00e2n Berry has shared her intention to amend the 26-year-old law which gave members of the public a general right to request information from authorities, such as Whitehall departments or local councils.<\/p>\n
The royal household and sovereign are not public authorities within the meaning of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and other public authorities can refuse to disclose their communications with the sovereign and his wider office.<\/p>\n
Ms Berry told the Press Association that allowing the release of documents and data related to the royals would \u201cbe a huge step for transparency in what has been a shadowy institution for far too long\u201d.<\/p>\n
Her draft Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill would extend to the Royal Archive, a collection of documents stretching back more than 250 years based at Windsor Castle\u2019s Round Tower, and the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster.<\/p>\n
The government has recently faced calls to publish documents related to the royal family which would not normally be released under existing laws.<\/p>\n
This reached a crescendo when MPs earlier this year voted to demand the release of papers related to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor\u2019s appointment as a special representative for trade and investment in 2001.<\/p>\n
A 31-page dossier published in response revealed efforts were made to stop the former Duke of York being offered \u201cgolfing functions\u201d overseas and that he favoured \u201cballet rather than the theatre\u201d.<\/p>\n
Andrew was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office in February and interviewed under caution before being released under investigation.<\/p>\n
Ms Berry, the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, told PA: \u201cIt is outrageous that there is a specific carve-out under freedom of information legislation for the royal family.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis unnecessarily shields what should be a perfectly normally accountable part of our constitution and it has to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Berry said that her proposal was designed to enhance scrutiny the royal family\u2019s use of public assets, \u201cthings that are part of the job, not part of their own private lives\u201d.<\/p>\n
The bill would need to be presented to Parliament and gain approval from MPs and peers before any change in the law.<\/p>\n
The Freedom of Information Act includes several exemptions, for example, to prevent information being released about secret special forces missions or MPs\u2019 residential addresses.<\/p>\n
Section 37 of the law exempts \u201ccommunications with the sovereign\u201d and related people, such as their heirs, from the law.<\/p>\n
Also exempt is information which could \u201cprejudice\u201d the UK\u2019s relationship with foreign governments, advice to ministers about how they should draw up government policy and secrets which could compromise national security.<\/p>\n
The government is not thought to be backing any moves to bring the royal family into freedom of information legislation.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.brightonandhovenews.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Brighton MP is preparing a bill to bring the King and the royal household under the Freedom of Information Act. Si\u00e2n Berry has shared her intention to amend the 26-year-old law which gave members of the public a general right to request information from authorities, such as Whitehall departments or local councils. The royal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2470139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2470138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Green-MP-aims-to-bring-royal-family-under-freedom-of.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2470138"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2470140,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470138\/revisions\/2470140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2470139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2470138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2470138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2470138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}