EU Referendum: Civil Service Guidance Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Cabinet Office
Andrew Percy
Main Page: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)Department Debates - View all Andrew Percy's debates with the Cabinet Office
(8 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Matthew Hancock
No, on the contrary. This guidance is a precise consequence of the Prime Minister’s decision to allow Ministers to campaign to leave. If the Prime Minister had not decided to allow Ministers to remain in the Government but to campaign to leave the European Union against the recommendation of the Government, such rules would not be necessary and we would not have had to publish them. This is a direct consequence of the Prime Minister’s decision to allow that debate to take place and to allow Ministers to take one or other side of the debate.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
Talking of guidance, my association was this morning issued with guidance from our north of England field director stating:
“The Party is neutral, which means that as an organisation we are not getting involved in any way on an official basis. In practice this means that Associations must not use any resources available to them, including money, data, premises etc. to promote a particular view.”
Given that this is a Conservative Government from the Prime Minister all the way down to us lowly Back Benchers, who are all members of a party that has no official view on the matter, why should civil servants who work for Conservative Ministers take a view on it? That is leading people out there to conclude that there is stitch-up to try and keep us in the wasteful EU.
Matthew Hancock
I do not think that is right. This House passed the European Union Referendum Act 2015, which required the Government to take a view and therefore the civil service follows the Government view. The Conservative party, as my hon. Friend says, is neutral on this matter, but the Government are not. That is a matter for how the party machine acts, rather than how the Government act, because as I have said many times, the civil service is duty bound by tradition and by law to follow the position of the Government of the day. That is why the guidance is constructed thus.