Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle granted an urgent debate in the Commons to haul Chancellor Rachel Reeves over the coals for “premature disclosure” of Budget details.
He has accused her of acting with “supreme discourtesy” towards MPs by announcing that she was easing her debt fiscal rule in Washington, in the US, where she was attending a meeting of the International Monetary Fund.
Sir Lindsay said it was “totally unacceptable to go around the world telling everybody” about “major” new policy announcements rather than giving the information first to MPs.
He granted an urgent question for a brief debate on Tuesday, as being demanded by the Tories, on “whether ministers disclosing policies to the media before the Budget are in contravention of the Ministerial Code’s statement that the most important announcements of Government policy should be made in the first instance, in Parliament”.
Earlier, Health Secretary Wes Streeting had defended Ms Reeves deciding to make the announcement days before the Budget on Wednesday, which he claimed was necessary to avoid shocking the markets.
“It was important for the Chancellor when she was in Washington last week to explain the context in which she’s making some big reforms to our economy and the way that she handles investment in our national infrastructure,” he told Times Radio.
“That was important to make sure that this Budget lands in the right context with the financial markets.
“We saw what happened with Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng when they ignored the Office for Budget Responsibility and sidelined them, when they took the markets by surprise, they ended up tanking the economy, and we are still paying the price for it.
“But we do take the Speaker seriously. We take Parliament seriously. We are members of Parliament first and foremost, and we’ve all heard very, very clearly and plainly what Mr Speaker said yesterday, and we will certainly be taking that into account in terms of our conduct in the coming days, weeks and months.”
However, Sir Lindsay was withering in his criticism of the Chancellor on Monday for not making the announcement on the change to the fiscal rules in Parliament.
He stressed: “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.”
