Former No10 Chief Of Staff Says It's Impossible For Boris Johnson's New Aide To Perform The Role In Full
Steve Barclay failed to show up in the Commons today to explain how his new role as chief of staff to the Prime Minister will work (Alamy)
4 min read
A former Number 10 chief of staff has said Steve Barclay will not be able to perform his new role fully, after he ducked his first Commons appearance since being appointed.
Lord Barwell, who worked in Downing Street for Theresa May, said Barclay was “very well qualified” for the job, but argued his other jobs as Cabinet Office minister and as an MP will prevent him from doing the things predecessors could.
It comes after Labour’s Angela Rayner said Barclay's “very first act is refusing to even to turn up to explain his own job,” after he failed to come to the despatch box this afternoon to answer an urgent question on the creation of a new office for the Prime Minister, which he will oversee.
There has been criticism of Boris Johnson’s decision over the weekend to choose him to replace Dan Rosenfeld in the key Downing Street position, as he looks to recast his top team in the wake of multiple resignations over the partygate scandal.
No living former chief of staff has endorsed the move, including Barwell, who told PoliticsHome: “The difficulty is he's not going to be able to do it in anything like the way I, Nick Timothy, Fiona Hill, Ed Llewellyn and Jonathan Powell have done it in the past.
"Because it is a completely life-consuming job done in the traditional way. I pretty much spent every waking hour of my life doing that job for two and a bit years.”
He explained that his desk was right outside the prime minister's office, making him a de facto “gatekeeper,” while Number 10 confirmed Barclay will have a desk in Downing Street but also in the Cabinet Office.
“He's not going to be able to be there the whole time because he's going to have his ministerial duties at some points, Cabinet committees he's got to chair, speaking in the house,” Barwell added.
“So there are clearly bits of the job as I would conceive it that he won't be able to do.”
The Tory peer said there are also likely to be accountability issues when he speaks in the Commons or to the media over which role is he fulfilling; as Cabinet minister or prime ministerial advisor.
Alex Thomas from the Institute for Government agreed, saying while he didn’t feel the appointment was as “constitutionally outrageous” as others do, there are “questions to answer about how he would be held accountable for doing the different parts of his job by Parliament and elsewhere.”
He told PoliticsHome if he stays in the role then he will have extra ministerial authority in the way previous chiefs of staff have not, and the creation of the office of the Prime Minister could “be really quite a profound change to the way the civil service operates.”
All the decisions are being done “through the prism of the immediate moment of crisis,” he said, and there are some “potentially quite big wiring issues” in government that need to get fixed as a result.
Thomas, who used to work in the Cabinet Office, added: “But the main question for me really is just the practicalities of it; how on earth will he find the time?”
A government source has told The Telegraph many of Barclay's current responsibilities will be redistributed to other ministers within the Cabinet Office.
But Barclay did not find the time to answer Rayner’s urgent question today, with Cabinet Office minister Michael Ellis answering in his stead.
He told the Commons the changes Johnson has announced, which also included hiring his former spokesman Guto Harri to be director of communications in Downing Street, will “bring renewed discipline and focus to his programme of priorities and deliver them faster for the people of the United Kingdom.”
The minister said Barclay “will himself answer to the electorate and who therefore has the democratic authority to direct civil servants and special advisers as a minister of the crown.”
But MPs in the chamber heckled him, shouting “where is he?” about the missing new chief of staff.
Ellis said Barclay’s appointment “gives an enhanced role for parliament,” but Rayner replied: “Yet his very first act is refusing to even to turn up to explain his own job.”
She asked: “Is it a ministerial job, or public appointment, or party role? It's not a special advisor, or is it something that doesn't even exist yet?
“How will he answer to us? Will he face me here as the chief of staff, or as a minister for Number 10?”
Ellis said as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Barclay is answerable to the Commons “and will will present a full range of responsibilities to this house in due course.”
But Labour MP Chris Bryant criticised the comments, saying “It’s a bit difficult to argue there’s going to be greater accountability when the man’s not even here to be accountable at the first hurdle.
“I mean, it is a preposterous appointment, it’s a sow’s ear of an appointment, it confuses the various different aspects of government.”
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