Don't sack cabinet secretary until Mandelson files published, Badenoch says

Kemi Badenoch has written to the regulator of civil service appointments urging them to stop Sir Keir Starmer from sacking the cabinet secretary until after documents relating to Lord Mandelson have been published.

Sir Chris Wormald, who is head of the Civil Service, is understood to be negotiating an exit package from the job to which he was appointed by the PM in December 2024.

The government's favoured successor is Dame Antonia Romeo, the top civil servant at the Home Office, who was on the four-person shortlist for the role when Sir Chris was appointed.

Cabinet Office minister Chris Ward said the process of releasing documents was under way and would be "unaffected by other matters".

Taking questions in the House of Commons, Ward said the papers would be published "as soon as possible" after MPs return from the parliamentary recess on 23 February.

In her letter to the First Civil Service Commissioner, Badenoch said since the cabinet secretary is overseeing the government's release of documents demanded by Parliament about Lord Mandelson's appointment as US ambassador, his removal should wait until after that is complete.

Badenoch described Sir Chris as "the latest person to be thrown under a bus by this prime minister" and said there should be a "full new process" to select his replacement.

The First Civil Service Commissioner, who oversees appointments to the Civil Service, is currently Baroness Stuart, former Labour MP and Brexit campaigner Gisela Stuart.

In her letter Badenoch also referred to an interview given to Channel 4 News on Wednesday evening by Lord McDonald, the former head of the Foreign Office.

Lord McDonald said that if Dame Antonia was the favoured candidate to succeed Sir Chris then "in my view, the due diligence has some way still to go".

This has been interpreted in government as a reference to an investigation Dame Antonia faced over allegations about her spending in 2017 when she was the government's consul-general in New York, and Lord McDonald was her boss.

In response to Lord McDonald's interview, a cabinet office spokesperson said: "There is absolutely no basis for this criticism."

⁠"Antonia Romeo is a highly respected permanent secretary with a 25-year record of excellent public service.

"The allegations all come from a single grievance made some time ago by a former employee. All the allegations were dismissed on the basis there was no case to answer."

Sir Keir has promised to tighten up vetting for senior roles, after the appointments of Lord Mandelson as US ambassador and Lord Doyle as a peer, despite their links to convicted sex offenders.

If she was appointed, Dame Antonia would be the first female head of the Civil Service.

Critics of the Downing Street operation, including Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, have claimed there has been a "boys' club" culture and called for more women to be given senior roles.

Given the job just over a year ago, Sir Chris looks set to become the shortest-serving cabinet secretary in the history of the post.

At the time of his appointment, the PM said Sir Chris would be tasked with "the complete re-wiring of the British state to deliver bold and ambitious long-term reform".

However, as a career civil servant some questioned whether he was the best person to reform the Civil Service and reports that Downing Street was unhappy with his performance in the role have swirled for months.

Sir Chris also had ultimate responsibility for the due diligence checks carried out before Lord Mandelson's appointment, although he took up the role only a few days before the appointment was formally announced.

He would be the latest senior official to leave the government operation in the last week, following Sir Keir's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and his director of communications Tim Allan, as the PM seeks to reset his team following the Mandelson scandal.

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