Rishi Sunak under fire for government’s record low in freedom of information

The grounds for refusing to release the information included an argument that the foreign secretary was entitled to privacy over his past business links.

Labour’s Pat McFadden, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said: “When Rishi Sunak entered No 10, he promised integrity, accountability and professionalism at every level.

“During his time as chancellor, we saw him desperately attempting to cover up the evidence of his incompetent management of the economy and his flagrant waste of public money.

Figures from last year show that during Sunak’s time as chancellor, the Treasury plunged from the middle of the Whitehall rankings for the percentage of information requests granted to the bottom.

The first annual report on FoI compliance was published in 2005, and showed that there were 29,271 requests received across all the monitored public bodies, of which 66% were granted in full.

The signatories included the editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Katharine Viner, the editor of the Observer, Paul Webster, the then shadow solicitor general, Andy Slaughter, the former Brexit secretary David Davis and the former Green party leader Caroline Lucas.