Permanent secretary Cat Little gives evidence to foreign affairs committee as pressure increases on Keir Starmer
Cat Little is giving evidence now.
She says she has two key relevant responsibilities.
You said in your introduction there that Cat Little was going to give an account supporting the prime minister. That is literally her job. Cat can’t sit before the committee and say what she thinks or what her own personal opinion is. Her little job is to sit there and say exactly what she’s been told to say by her ministers.
The foreign affairs select committee is not the select committee that Cat Little, the permanent Secretary of the Cabinet Office, should be going to …
We spent a long time in really turbulent days during Brexit defending the principle that accountability in parliament is proper and that ministers are accountable, and the civil servants who work for them, are accountable for their committees. And this sort of vandalism, where the foreign affairs committee can just call whoever they like in public, [is improper].
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