Good morning,

This week it was announced the Prime Minister was admitted to the intensive care unit. We hope that he recovers soon. This has therefore thrown up questions as to who fulfils his responsibilities while he recovers. The Chancellor meanwhile announced £750 million for some in the charity sector who are directly dealing with coronavirus. Finally the negotiations with the EU appear to be on hold due to the virus. As usual, we have a set of reading for you to enjoy.

Keep safe,
Jacob

In Politics

Who Is In Charge?

Prime Minister has appointed Foreign Secretary to step in while he is receiving treatment
UK Constitution is unclear as to who is in the line of succession
Questions to be answered over accountability of decision making when the PM is incapacitated

The Prime Minister was admitted to the intensive care unit for treatment on Monday as he has been infected by the coronavirus. Last night, the news came that he has now been moved out of the ICU and is back on the hospital ward. We wish him a speedy recovery.

The PM has therefore not been well enough to execute his job as the Prime Minister and Number 10 is now vacant while he is incapacitated. The UK does not have an official line of succession, unlike other countries around the world. Another example of our constitution’s ambiguity.

Number 10 has confirmed that the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, is standing in for Boris Johnson. However this is down to the PM’s choice and not because there is any formal line of succession, and furthermore Raab is not becoming the temporary PM. Raab’s appointment gives him no additional formal powers above that which he holds as Foreign Secretary.

Number 10 has explicitly stated several of the PM’s responsibilities that Raab will not be performing. These include:

He will not meet with the Queen each week
He cannot hire or fire Ministers
He will not work from Number 10, but remains in the Foreign Office

The Institute for Government highlights many key questions about this arrangement. They note that essentially decisions will be taken with the agreement of Cabinet and Raab. However issues could arise when the Cabinet and Raab do not agree, and the machinery of government needs someone to be the decision maker.

As a noteworthy aside, it has been confirmed that should Raab become incapacitated then the Chancellor Rishi Sunak steps in. Sadly there is no flow chart to easily see where responsibility continues should more members of the Cabinet become incapacitated.

This demonstrates that the UK’s constitution has yet to resolve significant questions about where decision making and accountability resides when the PM is incapacitated. How can Government departments function during a crisis like this one when it is not clear who is responsible for taking decisions. Furthermore, how can MPs, and society hold the decision makers to account if it is unclear where responsibility lies?

In Policy

Chancellor’s Charity Cash

Chancellor announced £750 million funding for charity sector
Only aimed at organisations responding directly to coronavirus
Organisations elsewhere in the sector still need help

This week the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced a £750 million in funding for the charity sector. Elizabeth Chamberlain at NCVO has written a helpful explainer of what is in the package. As highlighted by NCVO, this package is focused on those responding directly to the coronavirus crisis and falls short of the estimated £4 billion shortfall facing the sector. Caron Bradshaw, CEO of Charity Finance Group also has an excellent blog on the announcement here.

Stephen Bush at the New Statesman goes into some details as to the effect of this targeting by Sunak here. Due to this funding being targeted at those Bush describes as ‘NHS-adjacent’ this means many across the sector will not receive help. The knock-on effects of allowing many other organisations to go under will cause widespread ramifications for society, for instance, what happens to communities helped by small local charities whose funding dries up due to coronavirus?

The Times reported on the £750m and a revealing sentence was ‘Privately, many have been dismayed that their pleas for urgent government help appeared to be given a low priority in Whitehall and said there was little consultation in drawing up the package’. As we have highlighted before during the Brexit process, the Government needs better mechanisms for fully engaging with the sector. Time and again, organisations have not been engaged with properly throughout the Brexit process and it is clear that this is a fundamental issue running throughout Whitehall.

Negotiation Update

Negotiations have frozen due to coronavirus
No word on whether the UK will extend the transition period

The House of Commons Library has published a handy insight which updates us on the latest of the UK-EU future relationship negotiations. Read the full insight here.

As we have written in previous editions of our bulletin there are growing calls for the UK to request an extension to the transition period because the coronavirus crisis is making negotiations incredibly difficult as governments are focusing on combating it. The Commons Library insight highlights that the second round of negotiations didn’t take place due to the virus. Michel Barnier and David Frost (the UK Chief Negotiator) are both self-isolating. In a statement on Tuesday, Frost said he will speak to Barnier next week to discuss a timetable for talks in April and May.

But there are still big questions about what happens next. Will the UK ask for an extension? If they don’t extend, does this mean a no-deal Brexit at the end of 2020 will be the inevitable outcome? What happens if the PM and negotiating team are simply too unwell to work, who takes over? Where does the decision making for the specifics of what the UK wants in the future relationship lie?

Recommended Reading

The Hansard Society look into how different parliaments are responding to the coronavirus here
UK in a Changing Europe explores what next for Labour and the EU with the new leadership? Read here
UK in a Changing Europe also look at what is next for citizenship in Northern Ireland after Brexit here
Charity So White highlight the racial injustice of the coronavirus response here