Have files on Prince Andrew’s controversial role as British trade envoy been destroyed?

Official documents that could shed light on Prince Andrew’s controversial role as Britain’s trade envoy may have been destroyed.

The government has admitted that memos, emails and telegrams sent between officials about the Duke of York’s foreign visits when he was a roving trade ambassador ‘should no longer be retained’.

Under a so-called ‘retention policy’, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) sends documents of ‘historical interest’ to the National Archives in Kew, south-west London, or destroys them.

Last night former diplomat Simon Wilson, who was involved in a number of visits by Andrew’s trade envoy to the British Embassy in Bahrain in the early 2000s, said: ‘The Duke of York was directly employed by the Government and the details of his visits should remain in the public domain. domain.’

The government has admitted that memos, emails and telegrams sent between officials about the Duke of York’s foreign visits when he was a roving trade ambassador ‘should no longer be retained’. The Duke imagined himself riding a horse earlier this month

The mystery surrounding their whereabouts comes after The Mail on Sunday previously revealed how Prince Andrew exploited his role to further the business interests of his close friend, multi-millionaire financier David Rowland.

Royal biographer Andrew Lownie has used the Freedom of Information Act to request documents from 2001 about the people who accompanied the duke on his trading trips, his work schedule and any correspondence between officials and the duke’s cabinet.

But the DBT, a successor agency that oversaw Andrew’s visits with the Foreign Office, said it did not have the information.

The Information Commissioner’s Office, which investigated how officials responded to Dr. Lownie responded, saying that even if such information existed previously “it should no longer be retained.”

Prince Andrew spoke to his Chinese guide in Beijing in 2004 during a six-day trip while he was Britain’s international trade and investment representative

Dr. Lownie said he had been unable to find the information in the National Archives and – despite repeated requests from the Mail – the DBT refused to say whether the documents had been destroyed.

Dr. Lownie said, “I think there are a lot of questions.” He suggested that failure to answer the questions could lead to the appearance of a cover-up.

Such papers are generally kept for 20 years before “documents of historical value” are transferred to the National Archives, which defines information of historical value as information that reflects “the ‘what, why and how’ of government.”

The DBT said: ‘The department has complied with our obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, and this has been confirmed by the Information Commissioner’s Office.’