§ Mr. WilshireTo ask the Attorney-General if he will publish a list of all those official documents of the last Administration which have been seen by(a) him, (b) other Ministers in his Department, (c) special advisers in his Department and (d) non-career civil servants appointed since May 1997 in his Department. [92184]
The Attorney-GeneralA large number of official documents were generated during the period of the previous Administration, many of which were published or put in the public domain. Since May 1997, the Law Officers Departments have been guided by the convention governing access to the papers of a previous476W Administration, as set out in the then Prime Minister's reply to a written question on 24 January 1980, Official Report, columns 305–07.
Documents recording the advice given by the Law Officers (the Attorney-General and Solicitor General) are, by convention, made available to the Law Officers and other Ministers of succeeding Administrations in the interest of continuity of legal advice. By convention, the content of Law Officers' advice and the fact that it has been sought is not disclosed outside government. These conventions are referred to in Paragraphs 22 and 24 of Ministerial Code (published by the Cabinet Office in July 1997).