Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how long routinely deleted Downing Street emails are held for the purposes of (a) public inquiries, (b) subject access requests and (c) Freedom of Information requests.

All emails generated, or received, in the Prime Minister’s Office, including any attachments, may be public records and therefore are subject to records management policies and procedures. The fact that they may be public records does not mean that all emails will be kept for ever. Most will be archived in accordance with standard record keeping procedures. If it is decided that an email needs to be kept for more than a very short period it is placed on the official record keeping system.