The First-tier Tribunal has allowed an appeal against a fees notice issued by the House of Lords for electronic copies of archival legal submissions, finding that the charge of £0.85 per image had no lawful evidential basis.
The appellant, Gabriel Kanter-Webber, had requested electronic copies of the parties' written submissions to the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords in Hallam v Cheltenham Borough Council [2001] UKHL 15. The House of Lords issued a fees notice under section 9 FOIA citing the need for specialist imaging equipment, as the material was held in a bound archival volume that could not safely be reproduced using standard copying equipment. The Information Commissioner upheld the notice on complaint.
On appeal (Kanter-Webber v Information Commissioner & House of Lords [2026] UKFTT 00792 (GRC)), the Tribunal adjourned the matter in February 2026 and issued case management directions requiring the House of Lords to produce a Regulation 6-compliant, request-specific cost breakdown with supporting evidence. The Tribunal also made clear that only non-staff, non-capital costs could be included, and warned that failure to comply might result in adverse inferences being drawn.
The House of Lords did not provide a compliant calculation in response to those directions. The Tribunal found that the material filed did not identify, quantify, or evidence recoverable per-image costs, and appeared to include, or historically to have included, impermissible capital or depreciation costs.
Judge Brian Kennedy KC, sitting with specialist members Professor Dr Phebe Mann and Emma Yates, held that the fee was unlawful. The Tribunal said it was not entitled to speculate or reconstruct what a compliant calculation might have shown, and that Regulation 6 required demonstrable, request-specific costs that had simply not been established.
The Information Commissioner's Decision Notice was set aside and the Tribunal substituted its own decision, ordering the House of Lords to issue a fresh response to the request without reliance on the impugned fees notice. The Tribunal declined to remit the matter, finding that further material could not realistically cure the deficiency.
