§ Lord Jenkins of Putneyasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are withholding an increasing number of papers due for release under the 30-year rule and whether they are deleting information from those that are released.
§ The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone)A precise answer to the first part of the Question would require an elaborate statistical exercise at disproportionate cost. As to the second part, I am informed that names have in the past occasionally been deleted from public records in the departments concerned. It seems that this has been done either on grounds of security or to enable personally sensitive records to be opened to the public. I deprecate this practice and am taking steps to put an end to it.