The Cabinet Office has been accused of covering up for the royal family after the release of documents including some relating to travel expenses for the former Duke of York as UK trade envoy were withheld at the last minute.
Files released to the National Archives include documents relating to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and a grovelling apology from John Major’s office after an official birthday telegram to the Queen Mother was addressed in an “improper manner”.
But the documents, which are made available to media in advance under embargo, had also included No 10 minutes from 2004 and 2005 on royal visits. These were subsequently withdrawn, the Cabinet Office blaming an “administrative error” as they had never been intended for release.
The minutes, seen by journalists before they were pulled, appear unremarkable and include a note that a change in rules could mean costs for the then Prince Andrew as a UK trade envoy would be funded by the Royal Travel Office – rather than the former Department of Trade and Industry – adding £90,000 to its budget. Visits discussed were to China, Russia, south-east Asia and Spain.
The retention of the minutes underlines the way that files relating to the royal family are routinely withheld from release under the Public Records Act.
Graham Smith, the chief executive of anti-monarchy campaign group Republic, said there should be no royal exemption at all. “The most likely reason for this attempt to stop disclosure is pressure from the palace. The royals have sought to keep everything under wraps when it comes to Andrew, not to protect him but to protect themselves.”
A tranche released relating to Diana’s death and funeral arrangements was already released in 2005 by the Cabinet Office under the Freedom of Information Act, and includes a vivid description of events by the UK’s ambassador to France, Michael Jay.
However, they reveal Downing Street refused in 2005 to release details of a conversation between Tony Blair and the French president, Jacques Chirac, after the Paris accident, on the grounds such conversations were “confidential” and “fundamentally not in the public interest”.
It was several hours before Chirac could be contacted by his aides to inform him of what had happened, leading to intense speculation as to his whereabouts. His chauffeur subsequently claimed that he had been with a mistress.
Meanwhile, No 10 was forced to issue an apology after the Queen Mother’s private secretary, Capt Sir Alastair Aird, telephoned No 10 complaining that John Major’s 1994 birthday greeting had been “incorrectly addressed”. Roderic Lyne in the No 10 private office wrote back, apologising but insisting that Downing Street staff were not to blame.
“The message itself, as it left our hands, was entirely correct. However, in transmitting it, it appears that British Telecom most unfortunately addressed the telegram in the improper manner which you described,” he wrote.
“I am so sorry that this happened. Our own staff are sticklers for the correct form, as you would imagine. Perhaps the solution would be for us to abandon telegrams which seem in any case to be going out of fashion.”
It was not clear what the error that caused offence concerned, but the Queen Mother herself seemed unperturbed, telegramming Major and wife Norma to send “warm thanks” for their “kind message of good wishes”.
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