Former chief secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne has denied that the spate of requests for letters of direction in the last year of the Labour government was unusual, and has defended the decisions which prompted them.

Speaking at an event about the future of the Labour Party hosted by the think-tank Demos, Mr Byrne said the directions were “part and parcel” of government, and accused the new government of creating “cheap headlines”.

“Ministerial directions are part and parcel of the way in which civil servants and ministers interact… and I don’t think you’ll find a Labour minister who issued a direction who would make the same decision in a different way again,” he said.

“It’s fine for the new coalition to manufacture a few cheap headlines. Let’s look at which engineering firms, which manufacturing firms, which construction projects they’re now going to cancel because they think that Labour ministers made the wrong decisions. Let’s get away from the headlines and let’s actually think about the specific projects they had in mind.”

When it was put to him that the story had come from the head of the civil service managers’ union the FDA, Jonathan Baume, and not from the coalition government, Mr Byrne said that “With respect, he’s not the head of the senior civil service, he’s head of the FDA trade union,” and pointed out that both David Laws and George Osborne have “echoed his [Baume’s] concern”.

Written by Joshua Chambers