Keir Starmer has full confidence in Richard Hermer, Downing Street said on Friday, after reports suggested ministerial colleagues had become exasperated with the attorney general holding up policy decisions.
No 10 defended Hermer after multiple Labour ministers were quoted anonymously saying he had become a block on government decision making.
The attorney general has tightened government legal advice to make it harder for ministers to take decisions that could be challenged in the courts, but some in government believe this new guidance is excessively cautious.
The prime minister’s spokesperson said on Friday: “There is absolute confidence in [Hermer]. Let’s be clear about the effects of not engaging properly with the law as a government. Failing to do so leads to judicial reviews, which delay projects, routinely cost taxpayers tens of millions of pounds and end up blocking exactly the type of major new infrastructure that everyone accepts our country desperately needs.
“It is in everyone’s interests that the changes in laws to be delivered by this government are effective, whether it’s whether it is the attorney general, prime minister or the rest of the cabinet.”
Hermer is one of Starmer’s closest allies in government, with the prime minister having brought him in last year as a surprise appointment after the two worked together as lawyers at Doughty Street Chambers.
Since entering government, however, Hermer has irritated some officials with his insistence on vetting a range of policies to check if they comply with domestic and international law. Last year he strengthened official guidance to discourage ministers from putting forward legal arguments if they think they are likely to lose them in court, even if they think they are legitimate.
This has upset some ministerial colleagues, with the Times quoting ministers on Friday accusing Hermer of blocking policy to such an extent that he had caused a “freeze on government”.
One source told the paper: “He thinks he makes policy. He doesn’t, but he gets involved in everything and he’s an activist, it’s causing this freeze on government.”
The Guardian revealed last year Hermer had intervened to delay the decision to block some weapons sales to Israel over concerns a partial ban could not be defended in court.
Hermer has also been criticised for failing to declare the clients he worked for in private practice, unlike Lucy Rigby, the solicitor general, and her predecessor, Sarah Sackman.
Downing Street on Friday said that declaration requirements are different in the Commons to the Lords, where Hermer sits.
