Editing Thirty-year rule (section)

== United Kingdom ==
In the [[United Kingdom]], the [[Public Records Act 1958]] stated that:

{{quote|Public records{{nbsp}}[...] other than those to which members of the public have had access before their transfer{{nbsp}}[...] shall not be available for public inspection until they have been in existence for fifty years or such other period{{nbsp}}[...] as the Lord Chancellor may{{nbsp}}[...] for the time being prescribe as respects any particular class of public records.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/6-7/51/section/5/enacted?view=plain |title=UK Public Records Act 1958}}</ref>}}

The closure period was reduced from fifty to thirty years by an [[Public Records Act 1967|amending act of 1967]], passed during [[Harold Wilson]]'s government. Among those who had repeatedly urged the scrapping of the fifty-year rule was the historian [[A. J. P. Taylor]].

There were two elements to the rule: the first required that records be transferred from government departments to the [[Public Record Office]] (now [[The National Archives (United Kingdom)|The National Archives]]) after thirty years unless specific exemptions were given (by the [[Lord Chancellor]]'s [[Advisory Council on Public Records]]); the second that they would be opened to public access at the same time unless their release was deemed likely to cause "damage to the country's image, national security or foreign relations".

Significant changes were made to the rules as a consequence of the [[Freedom of Information Act 2000]] (FOIA) (which came into full effect on 1 January 2005). FOIA essentially removed the second of the thirty-year rules (the access one), and replaced it with provisions allowing citizens to request a wide range of information before any time limit has expired; and also removed some of the exemptions which had previously applied at the thirty-year point. After thirty years, records are transferred to The National Archives, and are reviewed under FOIA to see if they should be opened. The only rationale for keeping them closed within The National Archives is if a FOIA exemption applies.

As a result of that change, releases now occur monthly, rather than annually, and include more recent events, rather than only those over thirty years old.

An independent inquiry chaired by [[Paul Dacre]], editor of the ''[[Daily Mail]]'', recommended in January 2009 that the last restrictions on the release of information, such as [[Cabinet of the United Kingdom|Cabinet]] minutes, should be reduced to a fifteen-year embargo and phased in over a fifteen-year period.<ref>{{cite news |first=Deborah |last=Summers |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/jan/29/30-year-rule |title=30-year rule on government disclosure should be halved, Dacre inquiry says |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=29 January 2009}}</ref>

=== Change to a twenty-year rule ===
Under the [[Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010]], the UK government started moving towards a twenty-year rule.

Files from 1983 were released in August 2013 rather than January 2014, as would previously have been the case, and files from 1984 were released in January 2014.

There were two releases per year until 2022, when the National Archives received the files from 2001 and 2002, having caught up with the transition.<ref>{{cite web |website=The National Archives |url=https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/our-role/transparency/20-year-rule/ |title=20-year rule}}</ref>