The secrecy surrounding the Prince of Wales’s activities was ordered to be lifted yesterday with a court ruling that the heir to the throne should, in some circumstances, be regarded as a civil servant. The Prince’s Duchy of Cornwall, which owns over 130,000 acres of land and provides the heir with an £18 million annual income, is a public authority and hence subject to the same rules of disclosure as other bodies, according to a First-tier Tribunal. In a decision that could have far-reaching consequences for the Prince’s business interests, the tribunal on information rights has ordered the Duchy of Cornwall to disclose environmental information about an oyster farm it leased out. The Duchy had refused the original request for information about Port Navas from an environmentalist, Michael Bruton, arguing that the organisation was an “entirely private

Hospitals, schools, benefits offices and driving centres face massive disruption on November 30 after Britain’s biggest public sector union voted in favour of strike action over pension changes. Unison members voted by three to one to back a walkout that could involve up to a million social workers, nurses, care assistants, school dinner ladies and teaching assistants. The ballot, the biggest in the union’s history, means nurses and health care assistants could strike for the first time in 30 years. With 14 other unions now likely to join the industrial action, up to two million workers, including 300,000 teachers, could take to the streets. Unison said 245,358 local government and health members had voted in favour of action, with 70,253 against. But ministers immediately seized on the turnout of 29 per cent, and claimed that it showed limited support