We've paid for it, we have the right to see it.

Tomorrow Sir Jeremy Heywood, KCB, CVO, the most senior British civil servant who has been the Cabinet Secretary since 1 January 2012, will appear in front of Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee with its formidable chair, Bernard Jenkin.

Why?  Because Sir Jeremy has published guidance relating to information and resources cabinet ministers can and can’t access or use in the run up to the referendum.  You can read his guidance here.

It is important to note that Permanent Secretaries are the non-political civil service heads.

Now, if you or I were to have the privilege of sitting on the committee tomorrow, we could ask Sir Jeremy “who pays your salary?”.  I suspect he may well answer, the government, which of course is nonsense.  The government pays no one’s salary, they simply administer the payment on behalf of the tax payer, you and I in other words.   The tax payer pays the salary.  So the non-political head of the civil service actually works for the tax payer.

I read the guidance he gave.  Basically he is saying that information that has been accumulated, analysed and prepared by people who are paid for by the taxpayer in facilities and using equipment paid for by the tax payer cannot be revealed to the tax payer.

Now I am not naïve enough to think that every government paper should be open to scrutiny, particularly on matters of national security, we should leave that to chairs of committees like Bernard Jenkin who could hold their enquiry in-camera.   But on a matter of national importance, which are rather different from national security, nothing should be hidden.  

This is too big a decision, no matter what side of the debate you are on.  The taxpayer funded civil service cannot take sides on a matter of national importance.

As one minister observed, the Government can be accused of “double standards” because similar restrictions will not apply to pro-EU ministers, adding that Sir Jeremy had not “thought this through”. 

We need this guidance that Sir Jeremy has presented changed forthwith.