Labour leadership candidate Keir Starmer has demanded an investigation into Downing Street’s selective exclusion of journalists from briefings by civil servants.
In a letter to cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, Sir Keir said No 10’s “deeply disturbing” attempts to ration access to senior officials risked undermining the impartiality of the civil service and damaging democracy.
Meanwhile, cabinet minister and former journalist Michael Gove ducked the question of whether he would have joined correspondents who refused to take part in a selective briefing on Monday several times.
The reporters walked out of a planned presentation by chief Brexit negotiator David Frost after Downing Street director of communications Lee Cain ordered reporters from certain publications to leave.
It was the second time in a week that No 10 had attempted to restrict access to a technical briefing by civil servants, following a similar incident in relation to Huawei’s involvement in the 5G telecoms network.
Mr Gove told BBC Radio 5 Live he would neither criticise nor endorse the actions of Downing Street or the reporters involved because he had not been present.
He was facing a grilling on the issue in the House of Commons later in the day after Labour's shadow culture secretary, Tracy Brabin, secured an urgent question.
In his letter to Sir Mark, the UK’s most senior civil servant, Sir Keir said: “David Frost is a civil service appointee. The civil service code states that staff must ‘carry out [their] responsibilities in a way that is fair, just and equitable and reflects the civil service commitment to equality and diversity’.
“It adds that civil servants must not ‘act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests’.
“The actions of the prime minister’s director of communications, who is a political appointee, are deeply disturbing. I am concerned that they have undermined the civil service’s ability to comply with its core values of integrity, objectivity and impartiality.
“Equally, banning sections of the media from attending important briefings about important matters of government is damaging to democracy.”
The shadow Brexit secretary said the government’s trade plans were “matters of national importance” and media access to information from the chief negotiator “should not be determined by political favouritism”.
He told Sir Mark: “I would ask that you investigate urgently this matter and provide assurance that such an incident will not happen again.”
The parliamentary press correspondents’ organisation, known as the lobby, has already written to Sir Mark to raise concerns about the Huawei briefing.
It is not uncommon for politicians and their special advisers, who are political appointees, to brief information to individual publications or reporters. But it has long been the convention that briefings by non-partisan civil servants are provided to the media across the board to ensure that readers and viewers have access to their taxpayer-funded expertise.
Mr Gove was challenged several times in a BBC Radio 5 Live interview over whether he and wife Sarah Vine, who is also a journalist, would have joined the boycott of the selective briefing.
But he refused to answer, telling interviewer Nicky Campbell: “I wasn’t in the room at the time, so I won’t pass judgment until I’ve heard from all the people who were. I don’t know what went on. I’m not going to criticise or for that matter endorse either side.”
