.The big dEE .

29.1.25

LONDON: The attorney general lord Hermer refused on monday to tell the house of lords if he has ever recused himself from advising the government due to a conflict of interest.

Hermer has previously represented former irish politician and republican Gerry Adams and asylum seekers living on the Chagos Islands near Mauritius.

But Hermer said a convention called the law officers’ convention “prohibits me identifying particular instances in which law officer advice has been sought, even by implication.”

The law officers’ convention is just that – a convention – and so is not enshrined in law.

“The law officers’ convention is not a convenient rock for law officers to hide behind. It is an essential principle that allows law officers to properly discharge their functions by providing legal advice to the Prime Minister and to government and for that advice and the contents of that advice not to be revealed,” Hermer added.

“I do not think it possible, without offending the law officers’ convention, to identify circumstances and instances in which I have recused myself because in so doing, it would identify matters upon which my advice was sought,” Hermer explained, unable to break with convention to clarify what is considered a conflict of interest in the government’s legal circles and offer an opportunity for the public to decide whether they have drawn the appropriate lines.