Lord Laird – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laird on 2015-11-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many files from children’s homes in London that were previously supervised by the Home Office remain unopened because they are marked not for opening”; to which homes they relate; and how long those files have been closed.”

Lord Bates

Following a machinery of government change in the early 1970s, Home Office files relating to children’s home inspections were transferred to the Department for Health and Social Security. There are 49 files with ‘children’s home’ and ‘London’ in the catalogue description dating from 1931 onwards that are held at The National Archives. Details of the files, including whether they are closed, can be found through a search of The National Archives catalogue. Most are closed for 75 years from the date they went out of active use as they contain sensitive personal information where release would distress or endanger an individual who was a minor at the time the file was in use.