Could the Speaker cancel the Budget?

Lindsay Hoyle is, to put it mildly, on the warpath. The Speaker is now giving almost daily statements in which he complains about the government’s habit of making announcements to the media rather than in parliament.

Last week he was furious that Health Secretary Sajid Javid had held a Downing Street press briefing on Covid instead of coming to the Commons. Yesterday he granted four urgent questions as punishment for the latest round of briefings. Today he was back fulminating again, telling the chamber that the government was breaking its own ministerial code by giving Budget announcements to the press first. He continued: 

I want the House and especially the government to be clear if the government continues to treat this House in a discourteous manner, I will do everything in my power to ensure ministers are called here at the earliest opportunity to explain themselves.

This might, to an outsider, sound a bit like someone complaining about being NFI to a party, but it is important. Not only is it in the government’s own code of practice for ministers, but it is also a principle that MPs are the most important representatives of the electorate rather than the press (as much as it pains a journalist to admit this). As one very annoyed senior Tory backbencher puts it, ‘it sends a strong message that your MP doesn’t matter unless they are a minister’. It is something that I understand Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg has had to repeatedly remind government colleagues of, particularly when the Commons wasn’t functioning normally because of Covid restrictions. His argument has been that the government’s entire mandate comes from having a majority in parliament.

Tensions between Hoyle and the government have risen considerably in the past week, though of course they are nothing on the total breakdown of trust and communication that occurred under John Bercow. But what can this Speaker really do to make life sufficiently uncomfortable for ministers that they start taking parliament seriously again? Largely he is limited to more and more urgent questions which get in the way of legislation and government business progressing on time. But Conservative MP Charles Walker has another idea. ‘Cancel the Budget!’ he tells Coffee House with a mischevious smile. ‘If the government is determined to pre-announce the entirety of its Budget, the chair of Ways and Means [Deputy Speaker Eleanor Laing, who chairs the Budget debate], as soon as the Chancellor rises, should thank the Chancellor for his time, ask him to sit down again and invite the Leader of the Opposition to respond to the past seven days of briefings of the Budget.’

Now, obviously this isn’t going to happen. But there are suspicions in Tory ranks that Hoyle will make some kind of statement before he leaves the chair for the Budget. He presides over Prime Minister’s Questions, which is right before Rishi Sunak gives his economic statement. The chamber will be packed and the Speaker will find it hard to resist making his displeasure known to as wide an audience as possible.