Latest updates: prime minister’s spokesman signals that review of the future of the one metre-plus social distancing rule may be delayed
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Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, defended the fact that it is the prime minister himself who ultimately gets to rule on allegations about ministers breaking the ministerial code. Giving evidence to the Lords constitution committee this morning, when it was put to him that when put to him that the current set-up allowed Boris Johnson to “mark his own homework”, Case said:
The role of ministers derives from a fundamental constitutional principle which is that ministers are appointed by the sovereign on the advice of the prime minister by the use of prerogative powers.
So while we have now the distinguished Lord Geidt in the role of independent adviser – other people can get involved in the role of adviser, as the title makes clear – but under our constitutional settlement, the decision, the hiring and firing of ministers is an act by the sovereign on the advice of the prime minister.
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