Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Baroness Northover on 23 June (WA 136) and 8 July (WA 40), why the request to place a document in the Library of the House was refused yet it was released under a Freedom of Information request.

The Offering Memorandum sent by the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) Government for a bond issue guaranteed by DFID in 2011 is not a document owned by her Majesty’s Government. It would therefore not have been appropriate for DFID to place a copy of it in the Library of the House, although my previous answer did make clear that the Noble Lord could obtain a copy of the document by requesting it from the TCI Government.

Freedom of Information requests cover documents held by Her Majesty’s Government. DFID therefore sought the consent of the TCI Government before agreeing to release the TCI document.