Tory peer quits Whitehall role after criticising PM
Foreign Secretary tells PM she needs 1,000 additional civil servants to ‘rise to international challenges’
Baroness Morrissey, the Tory peer, has quit as non-executive director at the Foreign Office after she said Boris Johnson should stand down. It is understood Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, was outraged by the adviser’s comments and called for her to be sacked. A source close to Ms Truss said: ‘She jumped moments before she would have been pushed.’
LIZ TRUSS is resisting Boris Johnson’s attempts to cut Civil Service numbers and has requested 1,000 additional staff to work on foreign affairs in Whitehall.
The Foreign Secretary has rejected calls from No10 for Civil Service chiefs to slim down their departments – believing that the war in Ukraine and tensions elsewhere in the world justify a hiring spree.
In a letter to Mr Johnson in March, she pushed back against calls for a 5 per cent reduction in the FCDO’S headcount and instead called for an increase.
She said if she did not get more staff, it would hamper her ability to “rise to the international challenges the UK now faces”, The Sun reported.
A source close to Ms Truss last night confirmed: “Liz is digging in against deep cuts to the Foreign Office given the geopolitical context and war in Ukraine. We need resource to help Ukraine defeat Putin, deepen Britain’s influence in an increasingly uncertain world and better defend ourselves.” Mr Johnson and Jacob Rees-mogg, who is in charge of government efficiency in the Cabinet Office, have said they want to reduce civil service headcount by 91,000 people, to pre-brexit levels.
The Foreign Office is one of the smallest Whitehall departments, with slightly more than 7,000 staff.
The news came as Ms Truss, who has supported Mr Johnson during his recent leadership troubles, yesterday instructed her most senior mandarin to sack a Tory peer in her department who called for the Prime Minister to resign.
It is believed that Baroness Morrissey, who worked as a non-executive director in the Foreign Office, “jumped before she was pushed” after saying on Tuesday night that she would “rather Boris Johnson didn’t carry on”.
Lady Morrissey’s resignation came after Monday’s departure of John Penrose, Mr Johnson’s anti-corruption tsar, who said he thought the Prime Minister had broken the ministerial code.
A Foreign Office source said Ms Truss thought Lady Morrissey’s comments were “outrageous” and had ordered Sir Philip Barton, the Foreign Office permanent secretary, to sack her when news of her resignation broke.
It has also been reported by The Guardian that Alok Sharma, who attends Cabinet as president of the Cop26 climate conference, was considering resigning from the Government to take up a role as the UN’S global climate chief. He oversaw last year’s conference in Glasgow that agreed strategies to meet climate targets and reduce carbon emissions.
If Mr Sharma takes the job he may have to give up his Reading West parliamentary seat, forcing a by-election in the Labour-conservative marginal.
Mr Sharma and his spokesman did not respond to a request for comment, although sources in the Conservative Whips’ Office suggested the news had taken some in government by surprise.
Mr Johnson is already facing two byelections in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton this month.
Speculation about the future of the make-up of Mr Johnson’s Cabinet came after The Daily Telegraph reported he had been urged by allies to appoint Jeremy Hunt, one of his rivals, as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Whitehall sources indicated that a decision by the Government to approve a gas drilling site in Mr Hunt’s constituency on Tuesday may have been linked to his condemnation of the Prime Minister before Monday’s confidence vote.
The former leadership contender has campaigned against gas exploration in Dunsfold, Surrey, and supported the local council’s decision to reject an application drill for it on the border of the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.