Labour is finding it difficult to justify hiring Sue Gray

Labour was the party under pressure in an urgent question in the Commons. This is not normally the order of things: it is usually the opposition or a disgruntled backbencher who tables the question, and an irritated-looking junior minister who is sent out to bat defensively on behalf of their beleaguered seniors. But today, the urgent question was from Robert Buckland, a supporter of Rishi Sunak, and it was about whether Sue Gray and the Labour party followed the rules around civil service appointments. Tory MPs were so interested to hear the answer that a multitude of them had tabled suspiciously similar questions to the extent that the Speaker complained he wasn’t going to be swayed by ‘mass lobbying’.

Jeremy Quin, the Cabinet Office Minister, answered the question for the government with a cold satisfaction, telling the Commons that this was an ‘exceptional situation’ and ‘unprecedented for a serving permanent secretary to resign to seek to take up a senior position working for the Leader of the Opposition’. He added that the Cabinet Office was examining the circumstances leading to Gray’s resignation, but that it ‘has not as yet been informed that the relevant notification to Acoba has been made’. Acoba is the committee regulating public servants moving to other jobs, and the suggestion here is that Gray did not tell them at the right time about her appointment –or that she didn’t notify the Cabinet Office about her contact with Starmer earlier.

Then it was Angela Rayner’s turn to answer the question for Labour – again, not the normal order of things. The party’s deputy leader has so many job titles that she can plausibly take a question on anything, but her lengthy list of responsibilities does include shadow minister for the Cabinet Office. Today, though, she was as much in campaign mode, embodying the ‘attack is the best form of defence’ strategy that Rachel Reeves outlined in this magazine last year. She said:

I would like to thank Conservative members for asking why a senior civil servant famed for their integrity and dedication to public service decided to join the party with a real plan for Britain rather than a tired-out, washed-up, sleaze-addicted Tory government. This is the exceptional circumstance that the minister spoke about. We are talking about a party so self-obsessed that it is using parliamentary time to indulge in the conspiracy theories of the former Prime Minister and his gang. What will Conservative members ask for next? Will it be a Westminster Hall debate on the moon landings, a Bill on dredging Loch Ness or a public inquiry into whether the Earth is flat?

The biggest threat to the impartiality of the civil service is the Conservative party and its decade of debasing and demeaning standards in public life. Conservative members talk about trust. This debate says more about the delusions of the modern Conservative party than it does about anything else. After this question, I will go back to my office to help people who are struggling with the cost of living crisis, getting an NHS dentist and with paying their energy bills. All of those things are the result of 13 years of this failed Conservative administration. While they play games, we are getting on with tackling the real issues facing the country. When will they do the same?

Quin continued to demand that Labour offer more details on when they met with Gray, how often and where. He added: ‘Exactly what is Labour trying to hide?’

Labour says it is letting the investigation by Acoba run its course, and that the only reason it said anything about the appointment last week was that it was leaked to Sky News. This question is entirely reasonable given Gray’s move is indeed unprecedented and has seriously upset many of her former civil service colleagues who do fear that it will undermine the essential bond of trust between senior civil servants and ministers. There are Tory MPs who are not making it easy to take these important questions seriously: dragging the whole conspiracy theory over partygate into the mix, for instance, makes them look entirely self-interested rather than concerned with good government. And as Simon Hoare, the Tory chair of the Northern Ireland Select Committee, said, Sunak is in an invidious position if Acoba puts the recommendation to him: ‘If he says no, he looks churlish. If he says yes, he makes the civil service, which is already anxious about the attack on its impartiality, still more anxious.’ That’s why Labour should be uncomfortable about this appointment: it has boasted about following the rules by the book, but in this instance seems reluctant to prove that it did so.