Public Records (Colonial Documents)

Monday 5th December 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

Further to the statements to the House by the Foreign Secretary on 5 May, Official Report, column 24WS and 30 June 2011, Official Report, column 66WS, I wish to inform the House of our plans to make available to the public, over the next two years, the large collection of colonial administration files currently held by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

The timetable for transfer of these files to the National Archives (TNA), which has been approved by Professor Badger, the independent reviewer appointed by the Foreign Secretary, follows our undertaking to move rapidly to put these papers into the public domain.

In keeping with this Government’s commitment to transparency and openness, the entire collection of migrated files will be transferred to TNA. None of the papers will be destroyed. Redactions will be kept to an absolute minimum, for example in order to comply with the Data Protection Act. We expect that 99% of the material will be available for the public to read.

The files will be reviewed and transferred in alphabetical order of the colonial territory concerned with the exception of Kenya, Cyprus, British India Ocean Territory (BIOT) and Malaya, which will be prioritised because there has been particular interest. The first batch of files, representing around 16% of the total collection, is expected to be available for public view at TNA in April 2012. This will include material from Aden, Anguilla, Bahamas, Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Brunei as well as the BIOT and Malaya files and the first tranche of papers from Kenya and Cyprus. Given the volume of material from Kenya and Cyprus, the remaining files will be reviewed and transferred in batches over the following months.

The aim is to have all the papers transferred before the end of 2013. We will be publishing a more detailed timetable on the FCO’s website.