EU referendum: Brexit-supporting ministers regain access to Government figures that could support Out campaign

The guidance had been branded an 'unconstitutional act' by the employment minister Priti Patel

Out campaigners Iain Duncan Smith and Priti Patel arrive to attend a cabinet meeting at Number 10 Downing Street on Tuesday (Reuters)

Brexit-supporting ministers will be allowed to access Government statistics that could support their argument for leaving the EU, the country’s top civil servant has said, in an apparent climb-down in the row over Whitehall’s role in the EU referendum debate.

Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary and head of the civil service, told MPs that he would be “very relaxed” by ministers obtaining factual information from their departments, and that controversial guidelines issued last week restricting access to some civil service documents only applied to prepared arguments and speech material.

The guidance had been branded an “unconstitutional act” by the employment minister Priti Patel.

But in a combative appearance before the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee on 1 March, Sir Jeremy said he was “really struggling to understand” concerns around the guidance which he described as “common sense”.

While admitting that there had been “teething issues” and “misunderstanding” of the rules, he said that no ministers had yet requested any information that would be denied them under the guidance.

“The only material we won’t be prepared to supply them with…is material required to make the case against the Government,” he said, adding: “If a minister asks to see facts, we would be very relaxed about that…If we’re talking about pure facts, we wouldn’t expect to withhold those from ministers”.

Responding to criticisms of civil service’s support of the Government’s position that Britain should remain in the EU, he said it was “a statement of common sense that if the Government has a position, that is the position the civil service will support”.

Leave campaigners have claimed that the civil service’s stance compromises its constitutional impartiality, but Sir Jeremy responded, maintaining that civil servants’ “job under the constitution is to support the Government of the day”.

Sir Jeremy said it was ‘common sense’ the Civil Service should support the Government (PA)

Bernard Jenkin, the Eurosceptic chair of the committee, said that Sir Jeremy’s insistence that only “draft speeches and briefings” would be withheld contradicted his guidance to Whitehall departments, and called on the previous guidance to be re-issued.

“The cabinet secretary used this opportunity to say what has not been made clear before,” he said following the hearing.

“It was made clear to us that whatever understandings existed before our meeting, it is now not the intention that any facts, information or papers relating to the referendum should be not withheld from dissenting ministers.”

The Government later published an official analysis that warns that “all alternatives” to remaining in the EU, would “leave Britain weaker”.

According to the analysis, the most direct course for a post-EU Britain would be to revert to World Trade Organisation rules, but this would leave the country facing new export tariffs that would hit British business.

On 1 March the Chancellor George Osborne confirmed that the Treasury would prepare a “comprehensive analysis” of the long-term economic costs and benefits of EU membership and “the risks associated with an exit”.

He told MPs that the public wanted “a serious, sober and principled assessment from the Government setting out the facts” but the heavyweight reports will be seized on by the Leave campaign as further evidence that the Government is deployng the full weight of the Whitehall administrative machine to makes it case for Britain remaining in the EU.

The Chancellor said that leaving the EU would be “a long costly and messy divorce” that would hurt jobs, livelihoods and living standards.