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We are agonisingly close to Rachel Reeves delivering this government’s first budget and the atmosphere in parliament is fittingly feverish — or it would be, had the contents of the chancellor’s address not been largely briefed out in advance.
For the most part, Westminster is aware of the fiscal measures Reeves will “unveil” before the despatch box at 12.30pm tomorrow, following PMQs. That is deliberate. This government purportedly deplores the “rabbit out the hat” theatrics and associated gaming of expectations that have characterised recent governments. In any case, one doubts whether Reeves could lure a rabbit out of the Treasury’s “black hole” — even if the politics so demanded.
As such, we can expect few frills tomorrow, likely fewer jokes, and certainly no surprise reveals. That is how the government intends to operate; Reeves’ “rabbit” shortfall is intended as a conscious signal of the seriousness Labour says it has returned to government.
This, of course, is the same approach Labour took to its election manifesto launch back in June. Then, Keir Starmer told an audience of party activists: “It’s not about rabbits out of a hat, not about pantomime.”
“I’m running as the candidate to be prime minister”, he added, “not to run the circus.”
Between the media reporting and the set-piece speeches, therefore, we can form a pretty complete picture of what the budget will look like: there will be no changes to income tax, employee national insurance or VAT; employer national insurance will be hiked up to two percentage points; £500 million of new funding will be pledged to help build 5,000 social homes; £1.4 billion will be directed to crumbling and RAAC-blighted schools; government-funded childcare will be expanded to the tune of £1.8 billion; the bus fare cap will be raised to £3 (from £2); VAT exemption and business rates relief for independent school will be scrapped; an extra £10 billion will be handed to the NHS; the limit people can earn before being ineligible for the Carers Allowance will be raised from £151 a week to £181; and Reeves will alter the government’s fiscal rules to include a new method for assessing the UK’s debt position.
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But Labour’s approach to the budget has utterly infuriated Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the House of Commons speaker. As the guardian of MPs’ interests, Hoyle is insistent that major announcements should be made before the commons, not elsewhere, so parliamentarians can scrutinise any new measures.
In a statement to the House yesterday, the speaker was particularly perturbed by the fact that Reeves travelled to Washington last week to announce changes to the fiscal rules. The “premature disclosure” of the budget’s content is a “supreme discourtesy”, Sir Lindsay proclaimed.
“It’s totally unacceptable”, an incandescent Hoyle added, “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.”
This isn’t the first time Sir Lindsay has lost his rag at the sitting government for announcing policies outside of the commons chamber. In fact, earlier this month, the speaker reprimanded the government over the manner in which it announced the handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. “The minister should come to the House to announce the policies in the first instance [even] if that means waiting a few days”, he told MPs.
And under Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the speaker would rebuke the government on an almost weekly basis for its extra-parliamentary antics. Liz Truss didn’t really get a chance to upset Sir Lindsay as prime minister; indeed, had she trailed her mini-budget “rabbits”, the ex-PM might have resolved on a different course.
This, in essence, is Labour’s justification for unveiling so much of their budget ahead of time. Speaking to Times Radio this morning, health secretary Wes Streeting argued the drip-drip of budget revelations is necessary to avoid “surprising” Britain’s financiers.
“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”, Streeting said.
He added: “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.”
Sir Lindsay’s revenge, in this instance, has been to grant an urgent question on budget leaks to Laura Trott, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury. The UQ is as follows: “To ask the prime minister if he will make a statement 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.”
Trott’s hypocrisy is brazen — which she duly acknowledged. “Their whole argument is that we did it because you guys did it… justifying action based on things we’ve done doesn’t really seem like the change we were promised”, she told the House.
Trott added: “This government is taking lessons from the worst bits of our record”.
And so Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds responded: “I’m sure honourable and right honourable members will forgive me if I have a degree of cynicism about the party opposite’s newfound passion for parliamentary conventions.”
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