Theresa May defends Jeremy Heywood’s Heathrow meddling

Sir Jeremy Heywood has been caught meddling in government matters again. The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg reveals that the Cabinet Secretary wrote to ministers before party conference season to warn them against speaking out on expanding Heathrow Airport while a decision is still being taken. Heywood helpfully said it was fine to reiterate statements made pre-July but they should keep schtum on anything new now, in fear of opening the door to a legal challenge. For a senior civil servant to dole out orders to ministers in this way is pretty irregular— with one member of the cabinet telling the BBC it was ‘unprecedented’.

On the Today programme, the Home Secretary Theresa May said ‘I don’t comment on leaked documents’ before going on to defend Heywood’s intervention:

‘I am very clear of the importance of Cabinet Ministers not making comments on this particular issues such that when a decision is taken, whichever decision is taken at the end, people can complain and say it was somehow it was a priori decision and therefore judicially review it.