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Commenting after the Foreign and Commonwealth Office issued new guidelines which are designed to prevent officials speaking in public without permission at any stage in their lives, including after retirement, on any subject which “draws on, or appears to draw on official information or experience gained in the course of official duties” Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, the Shadow Security Minister and herself a former career diplomat, said:

“In the name of maintaining confidence between Ministers and civil servants, this is an extraordinary and undemocratic curb on free speech.  The government’s power to forbid the disclosure of information damaging to national security should not extend in a democracy to silencing legitimate debate of important issues relating to foreign affairs.

“It is manifestly contrary to the public interest that it should seek to suppress the contribution to public discussion of those individuals especially qualified to comment and it is chilling to think that it harbours this ambition.

“On this basis, for instance, it would be pointless to appoint to the House of Lords for their expertise former senior officials, able only to utter officially sanctioned comment, giving rise to the suspicion that the law will be unequally applied in those cases where the government finds the views expressed inconvenient.

“The FCO should revise these draconian and unworthy rules.”