It was perhaps rather optimistic to hope that the row over Eurosceptic ministers being banned from seeing official papers in the lead-up to the EU referendum would be cleared up in one select committee session alone. But Sir Jeremy Heywood’s appearance in front of MPs did manage to demystify some of the confusion over what will and won’t be handed over to pro-Brexit ministers. The cabinet secretary and head of the civil service said those wanting out of the EU will get access to ‘all the facts that have been provided to Number Ten’. Bernard Jenkin seemed happy with proceedings at least, saying at the end:
‘We have successfully cleared up this problem that ministers are going to see all the facts they want to see.’
Heywood also went on to say that ministers won’t be able to commission facts to attack the Government with. After being asked specifically about Iain Duncan Smith, Heywood made it clear that IDS has not been using the Civil Service to cause mischief. He told MPs:
‘He certainly hasn’t asked a civil servant to produce material to attack the government with and I wouldn’t expect him to do that.’
Whilst certain points were cleared up, though, not everything was. Heywood did his best to tow the line and say civil servants weren’t confused about the situation. He used a couple of phrases to attempt to make it look as though this wasn’t a debate worth having in the first place. ‘It’s very clear what we’re trying to do here,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’m being complacent, I don’t think so,’ he added.
But in his line that ‘the civil service should support the government of the day in its official position whilst endeavouring to support every minister of the crown’ he reveals something of the civil service’s dilemma in this. It’s clear that some material is still off-limits to those ministers wanting out of the EU but how to define that material remains a difficult balance to strike.
Jeremy Heywood said during the hearing ‘There isn’t any great ambivalence about this.’ But in clarifying his guidance, he also showed the risk that the civil service could end up tying itself in knots on this issue over the coming months.
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