The Labour government is facing backlash over its Budget before it has even been unveiled – and not because of its tough policies.
Both the Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle and shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt have called out the way in which the largest fiscal event of the year – set to be formally announced on Wednesday – is being presented.
Here’s why they’re so angry, and how the government has responded.
Why was the Commons Speaker angry?
On Monday, Hoyle said it was “totally unacceptable” that chancellor Rachel Reeves had confirmed some of her financial plans to change the government’s fiscal rules to the media and not to parliament first.
Reeves announced last week from Washington DC that she will rewrite the fiscal rules so she can increase borrowing for public investment by around £50bn.
But the ministerial code states that such major announcements should be declared in the House first.
Hoyle said: “I am very very disappointed that the chancellor expects the House to wait nearly a full week to repeat these announcements in the Budget statement on Wednesday.”
He said it looked like MPs will not need to worry about securing a seat in the Commons on Wednesday for the Budget because “we will all have heard it”.
Hoyle said: “It is 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.”
He added: “The elected members of this House are not the American news channels.”
How has the government responded?
The prime minister’s spokesperson told journalists this morning that it was “part of raising awareness with the public” and “entirely routine” to talk about the context in which a Budget was being delivered.
He also denied that government was “rewriting the rules” of parliament, adding: “We are committed to ensuring measures are also announced to parliament in the usual way.”
The official pointed out that there are several days of Budget debate in parliament before the Finance Bill is formally introduced to parliament, too.
The health secretary Wes Streeting also offered a robust defence of the government’s decisions to leak various details about the Budget this morning, telling Times Radio: “Oh, I think we all care about what the Speaker says. And we care about parliament. Absolutely.”
Presenter Stig Abell then asked him why the chancellor even briefed details about the Budget, adding: “Either you care about parliament or you brief. Pick one. Pick your poison.”
The cabinet minister said: “Well, look, I can firstly confirm for the benefit of Mr Speaker, in case he’s listening, certainly what I’m announcing today is the delivery of Labour’s manifesto. So we are honouring our commitment.”
Streeting also suggested surprising the public with fiscal news was a bad idea, recalling how Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous mini-Budget in autumn 2022 “tanked the economy and we are still paying the price for it”.
He added: “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.”
Why is the shadow chancellor complaining?
Jeremy Hunt has accused the independent fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) of lacking in “political impartiality”.
It comes as the watchdog is about to publish a review into the £22bn “black hole” Labour claims the Tories left behind in the government finances.
The row comes from the OBR’s decision to publish this review on the same day as Labour unveils its Budget, the party’s first in almost 15 years, where the government will blame its tough policies on their inheritance from the Tories.
The watchdog’s review will come on top of the OBR’s usual assessment into the chancellor’s economic policies and forecasts of the impact on the UK economy over the next five years.
“I do not believe publishing a review with criticisms of the main opposition party on the day of a Budget is consistent with political impartiality,” Hunt said, claiming that the review was a “political intervention”.
He said the timing of the announcement “gave the impression the OBR had pre-judged the outcome”.
“Proceeding in this way would cross a red line which would be impossible to defend as anything other than a political intervention,” he said, speculating that the timing was designed to make it look like any tax rises in the Budget were causing by a shortfall in spending forecasts.
On Tuesday morning, he wrote to the cabinet secretary Simon Case asking why “basic rules of fairness are not being followed” and also complained for not being allowed to seeing the report before publication.
How has the government defended itself?
Downing Street’s spokesperson told journalists: “The prime minister is going to back the independent OBR, not trash it.”
He added that Labour would not be blaming “the referee”, explaining: “The OBR is independent and the government taking steps to make sure it is never sidelined again.
This government will be honest about the choices and tradeoffs it faces.”
Meanwhile, the OBR chairman Richard Hughes said the report would “solely concern the institutional relationship between the OBR and Treasury” and the “adequacy of the information and assurances” from the government.
He said the watchdog would not “provide ministers of the previous government with access to the contents of the report and its conclusions before publication”.
