Lord Stoddart of Swindon – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Stoddart of Swindon on 2014-06-09.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what rules currently govern the disclosure of European Union information; and whether any past or present rule, or any proposed rule, bans disclosure of information disadvantageous to the European Union.
Lord Faulks
Access to documents held by the European Union (EU) is governed by Regulation 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (the Regulation), which provides a public right of access to documents held by these three institutions. The Regulation has also been extended to further EU institutions through other instruments. Information relating to the EU may also be requested from UK public authorities under domestic information rights legislation, including the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Neither the Regulation nor domestic legislation contain provisions which prohibit the disclosure of information simply because its release would be disadvantageous to the EU, and there are no plans to introduce such a measure. However, both the Regulation and domestic legislation provide a range of exemptions, often subject to a public interest test, which permit bodies subject to them to withhold genuinely sensitive information from disclosure where release would undermine legitimate interests specified in that legislation. These include, for example, exemptions which may be relied upon to protect international relations, commercial interests or the decision-making processes for making EU legislation.
