Memos cause for concern in Lords

CLAIMS that Scotland’s most senior civil servant has been promoting partisan SNP policies are to be raised in the House of Lords.

Labour peer Lord Foulkes of Cumnock said he is concerned by statements made by Alex Salmond’s Permanent Secretary Sir Peter Housden.

Housden has been criticised as having “gone native” after a series of memos to civil servants

Yesterday Foulkes said: “I have tabled a question and will ask whether it is right that the permanent secretary should stray into areas that relate to arguing the case for separation.”

The three opposition leaders in Scotland have written to Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary and the UK’s top civil servant, to ask whether Housden has broken the civil service code – rules that are supposed to ensure impartiality.

They wrote after it was revealed that Housden’s memos had suggested that the constitutional question had moved on from the UK coalition’s plans to devolve more power to Holyrood.

Shortly after the May election, Housden wrote: “It is remarkable how the terms of this debate have changed irrevocably in just three weeks. Calman and the status quo now seem lost in the mists of time.”

He also talked of how the country was about to “embark on a journey of constitutional reform with the near-term strengthening of the Scotland Bill and a referendum in the second half of the parliament”.

The complaints have been ridiculed by the SNP, and the Scottish Government has said: “The elected Scottish Government has a clear commitment to pursue constitutional change and independence ... it is entirely consistent with the principles of the civil service code that civil servants in Scotland should support Scottish ministers in developing the policy.”