Downing Street confirms Coffee House scoop on Cabinet row

As James exclusively revealed on Coffee House this morning, an ambush took place at this morning’s Cabinet meeting on legislation for an EU referendum and recall of MPs. Downing Street confirmed this at today’s lobby briefing, with the Prime Minister’s official spokesman saying that:

‘I don’t think it’s any secret that Conservative members of the Cabinet would want to see an EU referendum bill, and that point was made. With regard to recall, well of course we don’t… try to pre-brief the Queen’s speech… but the Prime Minister made clear his commitment to introducing that.’

The spokesman said he didn’t accept the premise that the Prime Minister had changed his mind on introducing the recall bill, adding that ‘the Prime Minister has always been clear that it’s part of the Coalition agreement, there was a draft bill that was published, that has long reflected the PM’s view.’