Harry and Meghan ‘made a lot of money’ by revealing private conversations from the palace. Yet we are not allowed to know what Trade Representative Prince Andrew has done until 2065! ABSURD, says historian ANDREW LOWNIE

Documents are the building blocks from which historians can recreate their image of the past and thanks to the Archives Act, numerous documents are available at the National Archives that can help us with this.

With one exception: the royal family.

Communications with the Sovereign are exempt under the Freedom of Information Act, and even the most trivial references in historical documents to the royal family are redacted – that is, censored.

The result is that most royal biographies are based on newspaper clippings and briefings from ‘sources’.

This obviously does not apply to the royal family themselves, who seem free to make large sums of money from the most eye-catching revelations, from the extremely private to the constitutionally intriguing.

For example, Prince Harry has given us details about his frozen penis, his mother issues, the monarchy behind the scenes, plus how and when he lost his virginity.

(Whether or not Harry and Meghan specifically helped Omid Scobie with his new book – which he denies – the fact remains that the Sussexes have briefed him in the past and it is they who first raised the issue of ‘royal racists’ in public.)

Meghan has told us in detail all about her arguments with Kate, which the Princess of Wales probably thought were private.

Members of the royal family can openly or covertly collaborate with domestic biographers and royal households can brief each other,

I’m sure the ‘friends’ who tell us all about Prince Andrew’s financial situation and state of mind are both real and royal.

Yet historians cannot see archives that are a century old.

It’s an absurd situation, and it needs to change if we want to write our history accurately.

I am a royal biographer now working on a living subject, Prince Andrew, so I am further limited by the provisions of the Data Protection Act and defamation. There are fewer documents to draw from and almost all of them remain closed.

An early FOI request revealed that all papers relating to the Duke of York will be closed until 105 years after his birth – 2065.

My particular interest is in the Duke’s decade as Britain’s trade envoy, a public position entirely separate from his royal duties and paid for by the taxpayer.

I submitted about forty FOI requests to the two departments that coordinated his activities for a decade – International Trade and the State Department – ​​with inside help from diplomats who organized the trips and set up communications.

My requests include communications to and from the specific embassies he visited with the exact dates of the trips, details of who accompanied him, his schedule etc.

I have had conflicting and very limited responses. It appears that Her Majesty’s Government does not want us to know anything about His Royal Highness’s taxpayer-funded employment.

Sometimes they say they have so much material in their possession that I should limit my request, but when I do I am told they have nothing.

They often combine very different requests and then deny them on the grounds of cost or saying they are a nuisance. Many of the denials have to do with semantics.

They will claim that they cannot ‘identify’ any telegrams, which may be due to the limited search they have undertaken, or will deny that they have any telegrams, so I have to resubmit the request for emails, letters and emails formulate.

There is never any ‘aid and assistance’ as required under FOI, and each request can take up to a year as they grant themselves extensions, fail to conduct an internal review within the deadline, etc. .

Several times my requests have been closed or not sent due to ‘administrative errors’. The intervention of the regulator, the Information Commissioner, has made no difference.

The Department of Trade declined to confirm or deny whether they had the requested information after I requested ‘copies of all correspondence and communications to the Secretary of State for International Trade from the Duke and Duchess of York regarding the late Jeffrey Epstein or his company and charities between January 1, 2003 and June 1, 2003’.

They further mentioned the exemptions of third-party personal data and information provided in confidence. The ICO upheld the decision.

The same request for the period from January 1, 1998 to June 1, 1998 received the same response.

A friend who works for the department says all references to the Duke have been removed from the internal computer system.

So, for example, we cannot know who accompanied him on his trade delegations. Could this be because they did not always serve the interests of British commerce rather than themselves?

For example, we know that some who made these trips had paid off some of the Duchess of York’s debts and had an existing business relationship with the Duke.

The Metropolitan Police refused to reimburse the costs of his protection for 2020, 2021 and 2022, and after he gave up his royal duties, on the grounds of national security, law enforcement – neither of which have a public interest test – personal information and for good measure health and safety.

I also asked them for ‘the logbooks of the Royal Protection Officers who accompanied Prince Andrew from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2009’.

They declined to confirm or deny that the material was retained, citing the exact same exemptions. The ICO upheld the decision.

However, we know that the Buckingham Palace logbook for the night Virginia Giuffre claims she slept with him in Belgravia has been destroyed, so there is no evidence either way as to whether he was at Buckingham Palace or Windsor that night as he claimed.

The Ministry of Defense said it had no information about ‘passengers and the destinations of the Royal Flight for the period 1 January 2009 to 30 June 2009’ and would not say where that information might now be.

Isn’t it in the National Archives?

One of the many FOI tricks used by government agencies is to simply not respond, knowing that the Information Commissioner will not intervene until all stages have been completed.

The Freedom of Information Act is no longer fit for purpose and needs to be reformed, but unfortunately no politician shows any interest in championing such a case that goes to the heart of trust and transparency in government.

Do turkeys vote for Christmas?

This culture of unnecessary secrecy must stop. With a new government there is an opportunity to view and access the hundreds of files relating to the Royal Family at Windsor, Kew and other repositories dating back to the nineteenth century.

Their closure creates a vacuum for speculation and fantasists; their release would help restore confidence in the institutions, not least the monarchy.