Sir Jeremy Heywood strikes a delicate balance over Brexit papers ban

It was perhaps rather optimistic to hope that the row over Eurosceptic ministers being banned from seeing official papers in the lead-up to the EU referendum would be cleared up in one select committee session alone. But Sir Jeremy Heywood’s appearance in front of MPs did manage to demystify some of the confusion over what will and won’t be handed over to pro-Brexit ministers. The cabinet secretary and head of the civil service said those wanting out of the EU will get access to ‘all the facts that have been provided to Number Ten’. Bernard Jenkin seemed happy with proceedings at least, saying at the end:

‘We have successfully cleared up this problem that ministers are going to see all the facts they want to see.’

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Heywood also went on to say that ministers won’t be able to commission facts to attack the Government with.