NHS, Armed Forces and Civil Service Staff: Public Meetings

Lord Butler of Brockwell Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what instructions they have given to the staff of the National Health Service, the Armed Forces and the Civil Service about speaking at public meetings of their professions.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, a core principle of government in this country is that Ministers are ultimately accountable for decision-making. Therefore, it is right that we are the principal representatives of the Government in the public sphere. As the Civil Service management code, released in 2016, makes clear, civil servants must clear in advance material for publication, broadcast or other public discussion which draws on official information or experience. As they have done for several years, the Government continue to approve public activity by civil servants on a case-by-case basis, and civil servants, such as Permanent Secretaries, continue to be accountable to parliamentary Select Committees in the usual way.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, if senior public servants cannot address their staff or answer their questions without first having cleared with Ministers everything they are going to say, they risk losing their public personal authority and becoming not leaders but puppets.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I think I need to reassure your Lordships’ House, but especially the noble Lord, that there is no guidance that would prohibit leaders within the Civil Service engaging with or talking to their staff in any fora. The only guidance that exists about what would need to be gridded at No. 10—the noble Lord will be very aware of the gridding process, given that he introduced it while he was Cabinet Secretary—covers anything that pertains to the media, nothing that pertains to engaging with your staff.