Scotland’s deputy first minister and minister for eduction, John Swinney, wanted to keep secret some documents related to Charles Windsor’s interference in Scottish education according to news media reports.
John Swinney
In an official email sent in June 2017 it was stated that Scottish National Party member Mr Swinney had asked government officials to see if they “could not release the material relating to Prince Charles”. “Not” was underlined in the email. He referred to four documents that he would “prefer were not released”.
Another email to Colin McAllister, Swinney’s political adviser, said that three documents had been withheld from public disclosure under an exemption for “commercial interests”.
The emails were made public following what the Telegraph newspaper described as “a seven-month FOI battle with a journalist”.
Liberal Democrat MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) Tavis Scott has asked the Information Commissioner to investigate.
Windsor, who is due to become the UK’s next head of state, is a patron of Teach First, which was seeking business in Scotland. He used the privileged influence that his feudal status gives in an attempt to persuade the Scottish government to favour Teach First.
In 2017 the SNP conference called for a reduction in the amount spent on the the monarchy. However, prior to the referendum on independence for Scotland party policy was for an independent Scotland to be a monarchy.