Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the written statement of 4 February 2015, HCWS251, what the titles are of the four additional files that have been found; if he will place in the Library copies of those files; for what reason one file had been marked for destruction; and if he will make a statement.

I have placed copies of the following documents in the Library:

· Cabinet Office Records Management Policy 2011

· Cabinet Office Information Retention Policy 2011

The policies in these documents in relation to paper files have remained the same as when the Hon. Member was a Minister in this Department. They were updated in 2011 to reflect changes in the Cabinet Office IT system.

The work outlined in my written statement of 4 February is underway and will be completed as quickly as possible. Information on the Cabinet Secretaries' Miscellaneous Papers, which was closed in 2007, can be found online on The National Archives Catalogue under the series CAB301. The Papers are covered by a Lord Chancellor’s retention instrument issued in 23 September 2014 under section 3(4) of the Public Records Act to allow series of records which form part of a backlog awaiting appraisal or preparation for transfer to TNA. This is standard practice for handling sensitive papers and has been in place since 1958. It would therefore be inappropriate to say anything further about their content.

Recording of file destruction is embedded within individual Cabinet Office records lists. Extracting the detail requested would have to be done manually and could only be delivered at disproportionate cost. The file marked for destruction had been reviewed in 2013 and had not met the criteria for permanent preservation as set out in the Records Collection Policy of The National Archives. Before final destruction took place, as part of standard processes, which have not changed since the Hon. Member was a Minister in this Department, a further review was undertaken and in the light of the content a decision was made not to destroy the file.