The prime minister has said he will “get to the bottom” of where damaging leaks about the Budget and against his Cabinet are coming from.
Last week, Chancellor Rachel Reeves told MPs that pre-Budget leaks suggesting she had abandoned plans to increase income tax rates were “unauthorised” and there was an inquiry under way.
Sir Keir Starmer told the Liaison Committee, a parliamentary committee made up of every select committee chair, that he did not believe the leaks were coming from inside his own office.
Questions from MPs to the PM also focused on standards in public life, including whether ministers were subjecting themselves to scrutiny by answering questions in Parliament.
The government has faced a succession of embarrassing episodes in recent weeks, including briefings about a plot to take over the leadership by Health Secretary Wes Streeting at the start of November.
That was quickly followed by stories in the media about a possible Budget U-turn on income tax and then the unprecedented premature publication of the Office for Budget for Responsibility (OBR) response to Reeves’ Budget before she had announced it in the Commons.
Questioned on the leaks by the chair of the Liaison Committee Dame Meg Hillier, Sir Keir said they were “intolerable” and an investigation into the leaks around the Budget was under way.
“I’ve no reason to think there was a leak from No 10,” Sir Keir added.
Dame Meg asked if he would “go as far as removing an individual” if they were found to be responsible, and the prime minister said he had previously done so and would be willing to “take appropriate action” at the end of the investigation.
“I’ll get to the bottom of these leaks,” he said. “They are, in any organisations – they’re intolerable.
“I took the same action when I was head of the Crown Prosecution Service.
“There is a leak inquiry, it can go wherever the evidence will take it, and if it comes to a conclusion, I’ll act on it.”
The prime minister was forced to defend his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney after some in government blamed him for the anti-Streeting briefing, but sources told the BBC that McSweeney was “not going anywhere”.
In response to questions about the affair, Sir Keir repeated that any briefing against Cabinet ministers was “completely unacceptable”, and said he had put procedures in place to crack down on it.
Conservative MP Alberto Costa repeated criticism that leaks from within Number 10 would make it seem he had “lost complete control of your Downing Street operation”.
Pressed by Costa on why he believed the leaks had not come from inside No 10, the prime minister replied: “I had assurance from within Downing Street on different levels, different people in my team.”
Asked to say whether the assurances came from officials or special advisors, Sir Keir said: “Special advisors – I’m not going to name members of staff but I will add this, I didn’t just take everything at face value.
“I looked at other bits of evidence to assure myself about what I was then saying publicly to the media.”
