Christine Jardine
Main Page: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)Department Debates - View all Christine Jardine's debates with the Cabinet Office
(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. It is vital that we first acknowledge that the civil service does an outstanding job. If one looks over recent months at, for example, how the Department for Transport dealt with the collapse of Thomas Cook or the response of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency to recent flooding, we see people going above and beyond to serve the public. But all of us can do better in every area. I look forward to working with the Cabinet Secretary and other leaders of the civil service to ensure that we can support the civil service to do even better in the future.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The allegations of bullying on the part of a Cabinet Minister are incredibly serious. We all saw the breakdown of that relationship at the weekend and that requires an immediate investigation. However, the ministerial code also states that Ministers have
“a duty to give fair consideration and due weight to informed and impartial advice from civil servants”.
There are now reports of an alleged hitlist of senior civil servants whom No. 10 is seeking to replace for political reasons—a list that reportedly included Sir Philip Rutnam. That is clearly incompatible with that duty. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether such a list exists?
Michael Gove
No such list exists. It is the case that having worked with a variety of permanent secretaries and other senior civil servants across Departments, I have personally benefited from their robust—sometimes very robust—advice, and I have always been happy to come to this House to acknowledge when I have been wrong and others have been right.