Internal Public Service networks in the United Kingdom have been ordered not to invite speakers to their meetings who are critical of Government policies.
A leaked memo from the Cabinet Office was directed at the informal networks that link Public Servants with common interests, such as the Civil Service LGBT+ Network, and the Civil Service Race Forum.
In future, such bodies are to be required tocheck on external speakers’ opinions and, if any doubts arise, they could only be invited with a Permanent Secretary’s permission, according to the memo.
The message said invitations should not be issued to those who have “spoken against key Government policies” and that due diligence checks should be made on speakers, including on their social media posts.
This follows a controversy over comments made by Cambridge academic, Priyamvada Gopal who was invited to give a lecture at the Home Office about Home Secretary, Priti Patel’s family background.
In a 2013 tweet, Ms Gopal (pictured) said Ms Patel was a “reminder that many Asians in British Africa had ferociously anti-black attitudes and were used by colonial administrations to keep black populations in their place – an attitude she brings to Government”.
In a separate development, Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg accused former Cabinet Secretaries who were calling for strengthened regulations around standards and lobbying of hypocrisy.
Mr Rees-Mogg said politicians were better placed to decide what regulatory measures should be in place than those who “deemed themselves to be saintly”.
The five living ex-Cabinet Secretaries, Robin Butler, Richard Wilson, Andrew Turnbull, Gus O’Donnell and Mark Sedwill wrote to The Times newspaper calling on Prime Minister, Boris Johnson to implement the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s recent review.
The review recommended the introduction of “meaningful sanctions” for ex-Ministers and officials that broke lobbying rules.
Mr Rees-Mogg said Prime Minister, Boris Johnson had a democratic mandate “and you cannot hand that over to a bureaucracy”.
He said the ex-officials were guilty of hypocrisy, given that many of them had taken up well-paying jobs in business after leaving the Government.
London, 4 December 2021
