EU Referendum: Civil Service Guidance

Gerald Howarth Excerpts

Monday 29th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

The debate over how this would operate took place during the passage of the European Union Referendum Bill, which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe took through Parliament. During the passage of that Bill, there was quite a debate, for example, about how purdah should operate, and many concessions were made by the Government in order to ensure that the process is fair. The result of that was an Act that included the requirement for the Government to take a view and then to be able to set out information on various aspects of the referendum, and that is exactly what we are doing.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I think I heard the Minister say that dissenting Ministers will not be allowed to see papers making the case for Britain to remain in the EU, which suggests that the Government have very little confidence in their own arguments. May I put it to my right hon. Friend that it is a constitutional outrage to deny access to arguments that “may”—as the briefing paper says—have a bearing on the referendum to some key Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Justice who are intimately involved in the central issues of this referendum? The Government really need to think again about that, because otherwise the British people will think that the Government intend to rig the referendum.

[Matthew Hancock]

I would argue the contrary. The constitutional difficulty would arise if civil servants were being asked to support a position that was not the position of the Government. The civil service is there to support the Government. I would argue that this is precisely in order to stick to the constitution, as set out by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 but as carried out in practice for decades and decades before that. The job of the civil service is to support the Government, and that is what it should do.