Sir Lindsay Hoyle has expressed his frustration about Labour revealing details about the Budget before it is properly presented to MPs in an official announcement in Parliament
Lindsay Hoyle hits out at ‘discourtesy’ over Budget announcements
The Commons Speaker has expressed further frustration over the Government’s Budget announcements ahead of Wednesday.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle kicked off on Monday about Labour revealing details about the Budget before it is properly presented to MPs in Parliament. He accused Chancellor Rachel Reeves of acting with “supreme discourtesy” towards MPs given her “premature disclosure” of Budget details. He complained that it is “unacceptable to go around the world telling everybody” about “major” new policy announcements rather than giving the information first to MPs.
The Speaker, who was a member of Labour before his election to the role, expressed further anger on Tuesday after Health Secretary Wes Streeting suggested disclosing parts of the Budget ahead of time is necessary to avoid shocking the markets. But Sir Lindsay later told the Commons chamber: “I’ve noted media reports on the assertion from Downing Street that the pre-announcement of Budget measures is entirely routine.
“For avoidance of doubt, I’m always happy for ministers to come to the House in the run-up to the Budget to make announcements. This discourtesy arises when those announcements are made elsewhere.”
Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds responded: “Can I just reassure you, Mr Speaker, that what you said yesterday and indeed what you said today a moment or two ago has been heard not just by me but right across Government as well. The Government takes its obligations to this House very seriously.”
Shadow Treasury minister Laura Trott, who tabled an urgent question in the Commons on the row, said it appeared No10 was justifying announcing things before the Budget by arguing that they were doing it because the Tories had. She continued: “I’m old enough to remember a fresh-faced Prime Minister coming into Downing Street promising change. Justifying their actions based on things that we’ve done doesn’t really seem like the change that we were promised now, does it?
“We’re learning the lessons of why we lost the election but this Government seems to be taking lessons from the worst bits of our record, and not just ours but the last Labour government too. It’s like the greatest hits of government mistakes being replayed in just 100 days.”
But Mr Thomas-Symonds hit back: “Forgive me if I have a degree of cynicism about the party opposite’s new found passions for parliamentary conventions, given the number of times they failed in their 14 years in office to update the House ahead of major announcements. But the truth is that the Conservative Party are desperate to speak about nothing other than the appalling mess they left on national finances. There are many groups of people I would listen to on Budget management, but certainly not the party that crashed the economy.”
The row broke after Ms Reeves last week signalled she would rewrite the way Government debt is measured. During a round of broadcast interviews while attending the International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington DC, Ms Reeves confirmed a technical change in the way she would measure progress against the target of managing debt.
It is expected Ms Reeves will use the Budget to open the door for the Government to spend billions more on long-term infrastructure, such as replacing dilapidated buildings on the public sector estate.
On Monday Sir Lindsay, making a statement, told the Commons: “In media interviews last week the Chancellor announced that she intended to introduce changes to the fiscal rules relating to the funding of day-to-day spending through tax receipts and to the measurement of the public debt.
“These are major new policy announcements with significant and wide-ranging implications for the Government’s fiscal policy and for the public finances. It is evident to me that this should therefore have been made in the first instance in this House and not to the world’s media. This principle is clearly and unambiguously set out in paragraph 9.1 of the Ministerial Code.
“While this can hardly be described as a leak – the Chancellor herself gave interviews on the record and on camera – the premature disclosure of the contents of the Budget has always been regarded as a supreme discourtesy to the House. Indeed, I still regard it as such. I am very, very disappointed that the Chancellor expects the House to wait nearly a full week to hear her repeat these announcements in the Budget statement on Wednesday.”
Sir Lindsay said he has “always defended” the right of MPs to be the first to hear major Government policy announcements, adding: “Ministers should expect to face proper, sustained scrutiny when these announcements are made from the elected Members of this House and not the American news channels.”
He added: “It’s totally unacceptable to go around the world telling everybody rather than these Members. They were elected by the constituents of this country and they deserve to be treated better.”