Justice secretary Michael Gove is considering plans to make it more difficult for journalists and campaigners to use the freedom of information act to access government data.

According to plans outlined in the Financial Times, the new Lord Chancellor is seeking to incorporate officials' ‘thinking time' into the costs of responding to FOI requests.

This would make it easier for Whitehall officials to claim the £600 cost limit of meeting a FOI had been breached, thereby giving civil servants sanction to end further assistance with information requests.