Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on how many occasions her Department applied the exemption in section 38(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (disclosure likely to endanger the safety of any individual) in wholly or partly refusing a freedom of information request in each of the last five years.

No such instructions have been issued. Officials handling freedom of information requests are advised to consult the guidance issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office whenever the use of an application is being considered.

The Ministry of Justice publishes annual statistical reports on the handling of requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for central government. These reports include statistics on the number of times each exemption was used by each government department to withhold information. These reports can be accessed on the following webpage: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics.