§ Mr. LivingstoneTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what progress has been made in his initiative to release blocks of state papers when requested by historians; how many records have been released under this initiative; what subjects the released records cover; if all these records have been released to the public record office; and if he will make a statement. [31320]
§ Mr. FreemanGood progress has been made with the reviewing and releasing of records since my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave), then the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, announced on 25 June 1992, that he was inviting historians to suggest blocks of records withheld by the Government which should be considered for release as part of the Government's initiative on openness.
More than 53,000 records have been released in the Public Record Office, Kew as a result of the openness initiatives, including those released in response to historians' requests and the review by Government Departments of all over-30-year-old material in accordance with the provisions of the White Paper on open government, Cm 2290, published in July 1993.
The records that have been released over a wide variety of subjects. It would be disproportionately costly to list them all, but they include, for example, wartime Cabinet records, Joint Intelligence Committee minutes and memorandums, papers relating to the trial and execution of Roger Casement and the Invergordon mutiny, and previously withheld records relating to Suez.
In addition, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has released four batches of records from the special operations executive—SOE—archive relating to SOE' s activities in Scandinavia, the far east, the middle east and eastern Europe.
Government Departments continue to re-review withheld records and to respond to requests from historians and others. As a result of these initiatives, many more records are expected to be released in the coming months.