Health minister Andrea Leadsom has described a row over the all-male Garrick Club as “beyond pathetic” as it emerged Cabinet Secretary Simon Case had given up his membership 24 hours after defending it to MPs.
The list also included King Charles III, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden, and Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove.
Mr. Case, who is the head of the civil service and works closely with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, was appointed as Cabinet secretary by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2020 and was previously private secretary to the future king when he was prince of Wales.
On Tuesday, while he was giving evidence to MPs, Mr. Case was asked by Labour MP Liam Byrne how he could “foster a genuine culture of inclusiveness” in the civil service when he was “a member of an all-male club.”
Mr. Case replied by saying he felt it was “easier” to change the Garrick Club “from within rather than chuck rocks from the outside.”
On Thursday, Ms. Leadsom was asked by LBC presenter Nick Ferrari if she would consider joining the Garrick Club if it changed its rules on allowing in women.
She replied: “It’s been open for about 200 years and it’s never allowed women. So I really wouldn’t want to join a club that for 200 years, since it started, hasn’t accepted women.”
Ms. Leadsom added, “It’s extraordinary that the head of the civil service has only just discovered that.”
Ben Wallace Points Out There Are All-Female Clubs
Earlier the former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told LBC he was not a member of the Garrick Club, but he said: “I wish people would just be left alone. If a whole load of men want to get together and have a club it’s up to them.”Mr. Wallace said: “There are plenty of all-male clubs. There are actually all-female clubs out there, right? I haven’t lost any sleep over whether the Garrick has men or women. It’s not my business ... if people want to do that let them be free to do it.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Case told MPs: “Every one person who leaves, who is in favour of fixing this antediluvian position, every one of us who leaves means these institutions don’t change. I think when you want reform you have to participate.”
“I’m very sure I speak on behalf of all the public servants who have recently joined the Garrick under the banner of trying to make reform happen,” he added.
After Mr. Case resigned, Caroline Nokes, a Conservative MP and chair of the House of Commons Equalities Committee, said, “If Simon Case’s argument that he was reforming it from within was in any way valid, we’d have seen some reform, but we haven’t.”
“I’m pleased that he’s finally seen the light and disappointed that it took him so long,” she added.
Mr. Case returned to his job as Cabinet secretary in January after taking three months off owing to a medical matter.
Several Garrick Club members who support women becoming members hired David Pannick, KC—a top barrister who represented Mr. Johnson during the so-called Partygate hearings—to write a legal opinion of whether it was possible.
A team of lawyers led by Mr. Pannick concluded: “In our view, the language of the rules is clear. There is no prohibition on the admission of female members … There is nothing in the language of the rules which excludes the admission of women as members. Indeed … there is no restriction of the proposal of candidates for membership to men.”
