Hammond delays leaving No 11, which Boris may prefer to next door

PHILIP HAMMOND will delay Boris Johnson’s move into Downing Street if he becomes prime minister after he told civil servants he will not be moving his furniture out straight away.

Mr Hammond will quit No11 when he resigns tomorrow, but will leave his belongings there at least until the weekend, The Daily Telegraph was told.

Mr Johnson reportedly wants to move into the flat above No11 because it is larger than the cramped No10 flat currently occupied by Theresa May.

Both leadership contenders, however, have been told they will not be able to move into No11 straight away.

Treasury sources said any move is done by agreement between former and current chancellors, and pointed out that Mr Hammond did not move in for months after his own appointment.

Mr Johnson, who is reported to have told civil servants he “didn’t have any stuff ” after separating from his wife, Marina Wheeler, has discussed the possibility of buying new furniture at taxpayers’ expense if he becomes prime minister, and may not be in a position to move in straight away.

While No10 is the official residence of the prime minister, the trend to live next door started in 1997 when Tony Blair traded properties with Gordon Brown, his chancellor.

When Mr Blair assumed office he had three children and required more space than Mr Brown, who at that point did not have a family.

In 2010, when David Cameron moved to Downing Street, he also moved into No 11 because the larger space served his family better.

There has been a long standing precedent of chancellors being allowed to stay in No11 for a short period of time after they leave office.

Despite being appointed chancellor in July 2016, Mr Hammond did not move in until four months later, to give George Osborne enough time to leave.

Mr Hammond said his “wife is on the job” when asked by the BBC’S Political Thinking with Nick Robinson if he had the packing boxes at the ready. He added that it was “an unsettling time”.

“I’ve been in the Cabinet for nine years now,” he said. “There is a sense of things we wanted to, hoped to, take further. I hope we’ve started them but it would have been nice to see them finished.”

Since Mr Johnson separated from the mother of his four children, he has been in a relationship with Carrie Symonds, a former Conservative party communications director.

The couple will live together but Ms Symonds will wait until the weekend before entering Downing Street, to avoid becoming a distraction if and when Mr Johnson officially enters No10.

There has never been a prime minister who has lived openly with a girlfriend.