Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff Sue Gray has cautioned the Government over cuts to the Civil Service and hit out at the insulting language being used.
Making her maiden speech in Parliament, the one-time “partygate” investigator stressed the importance of officials to the Labour administration’s mission to realise economic growth and warned when derogatory statements were made about them “they hear it too”.
The Labour peer’s comments follow reports that moves to reform the Civil Service and reduce its size had been dubbed “Operation Chainsaw”, although this was denied by Downing Street.
This was an apparent reference to Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw to symbolise the work of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, a Trump administration programme aimed at cutting US federal government spending.
Unions have warned as many as 50,000 people could lose their jobs and vital services could deteriorate after the Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed plans earlier this week to cut Civil Service running costs by 15% by the end of the decade as part of a spending squeeze.
Taking the title Baroness Gray of Tottenham, the former senior civil servant joined the red benches last month.
She told peers she joined the Civil Service at the most junior grade and among her first jobs had been with the then Department for Social Security working in employment support.
Lady Gray said: “Back then I worked with truly heroic and committed people, striving every day in very difficult circumstances to help people in even more challenging situations.
“They were the Civil Service at its best, on the front line, as far away from Whitehall’s machinations as it’s possible to be.”
She added: “Today I see the same sort of brilliance. What these and other civil servants are doing is central to the Government’s and the nation’s mission to bring back growth into our economy and security to our society.
“That is why I would caution all of us to be careful, not just about our decisions but our language.
“When we hear the phrases, ‘blobs’, ‘pen-pushers’, ‘axes’, ‘chainsaws’ and other implements, they hear it too.
“Difficult decisions are needed of course and the Civil Service will be keen to be part of any reform journey, but we need them and other public servants to succeed.
“I will continue to support a progressive Civil Service. I hope others will do the same.”
While in her speech Lady Gray did not comment directly about her high-profile probe into Covid rule-breaking at Boris Johnson’s Number 10 in 2021, she did say her work in Whitehall had “included conducting one or two high-profile investigations”.
She also did not speak about her time as Sir Keir’s chief of staff, after quitting the Cabinet Office, during her debut contribution in a debate on Labour’s workers’ rights plans.
Once in Government, she was the target of negative briefings amid reports of a power struggle in Downing Street between her and other aides, leading to her resignation last October citing concerns that she was “becoming a distraction” to the work of Government.
But in an apparent reference to this period, Lady Gray said: “I would also like to thank those who guided me in the challenging last few years of my career in and around Downing Street whether working in it or investigating it.”
Among those she singled out was the FDA, the trade union for senior civil servants, and its general secretary Dave Penman.
She pointedly added: “I am not sure what it is about the mention of my time in Downing Street that brings me to the issue of job security and employment.”
Lady Gray also joked about her time running a pub with her husband in Newry, Northern Ireland, at the height of the Troubles in the late 1980s.
She said: “On joining the Civil Service I was not on a mission to work my way to the top. This was probably best illustrated when I took a career break which has been much commented upon.
“Although the Civil Service encourages its future leaders to get outside experience, running a pub in Newry, County Down, in the late 80s was not on their list.”
Earlier in her speech, the peer spoke movingly about her parents, who had come to London from Ireland in the 1950s, the values they had instilled in her and her brother, and the impact of their deaths.
She said: “I left school before completing my A-levels on the early and unexpected death of my dad. My brother and I also had to support our mum who struggled with her mental health before taking her own life some years later.”
With her voice breaking with emotion, and having to pause momentarily, she added: “The deaths of our parents had the biggest impact on our lives.”
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