Budget leaks and briefings are out of hand

Successive governments have revealed the contents of forthcoming Budget statements to the media, it's always wrong and it needs to stop

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 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 they should therefore have been made in this House in the first instance, 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 disappointed that the Chancellor expects the House to wait nearly a full week to hear her repeat the announcements in the Budget statement on Wednesday. I have always defended the undoubted right of this House, including the Opposition parties and Back Benchers in all parts of the House, to be the first to hear major Government policy announcements. When such announcements are made, Ministers should expect to face proper, sustained scrutiny from the elected Members of this House, not American news channels. I can assure the Government that that is still my firm view, and that I will use the powers I have to make sure the House is able to hold Ministers to account.

I am glad that there will be a statement later on fiscal rules—perhaps that is no coincidence. Hon. Members may be wondering how they will get a seat on Wednesday, but to be quite honest, the way it is going, they will not need one, as we will have heard it all already. This is not acceptable, and I do not want it to continue. I want this House—Government and Opposition—to be treated with the respect it deserves. It is totally unacceptable to go around the world telling everyone rather than Members of this House. They were elected by the constituents of this country and they deserve to be treated better. When the Conservatives were the Government, it was Labour complaining to me. Get your acts together, on all sides, and treat Members with respect.

Those were the words of the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, on Monday. He was angry, rightly, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, had given media interviews in the preceding days in which she had discussed some of the measures which would be contained in today’s Budget statement, and emphasised that it was unacceptable for announcements of changes to government policy to be made to journalists before the House of Commons had been informed.

It is hardly the only part of the Budget which has been briefed, leaked or otherwise disclosed. Government sources have briefed that a freeze on income tax thresholds will continue beyond 2028 and that there will be an increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions, and the Chancellor has confirmed that schools will receive money for rebuilding, the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage will be increased and there will be additional funding for equipment for the NHS. It was even announced that there would be five new freeports, but that, it transpired, was a “comms cock-up” and in fact will not be in the Budget. The Speaker had a point when he told the House:

Hon. Members may be wondering how they will get a seat on Wednesday, but to be quite honest, the way it is going, they will not need one, as we will have heard it all already.

Let’s be clear about one thing: the current government is not to first to leak or brief contents of the Budget in advance of the Chancellor’s statement to the Commons. Previous governments, Conservative and Labour, have done so, and this was cited as a defence by Downing Street. Yesterday, Hoyle dismissed that defence.

I have noted the media reporting an assertion from Downing Street that the pre-announcement of Budget measures is entirely routine. For the avoidance of doubt, I am always happy for Ministers to come to the House to make announcements in the run-up to a Budget. This discourtesy arises when those announcements are made elsewhere.

It is a rather shoddy excuse that “everyone else has done it”, especially for a government which came to office having made such play of its intentions of probity, integrity and ethics. And it makes no difference: it is still unacceptable.

The Budget is ceremonially shrouded in secrecy. Even the cabinet is not formally told of its contents until the morning of the statement, and physical copies of the details are withheld by HM Treasury until the very last minute possible, even from the Chairman of Ways and Means who traditionally presides over the Budget statement and the ensuing debate. (Believe me: I was private secretary to Sir Lindsay when he was Chairman of Ways and Means and the margins were incredibly fine.) But the extent to which today’s Budget has been trailed, and the unapologetic nature of it, seems to have hit new heights.

Yesterday, Laura Trott, the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury in Rishi Sunak’s interim shadow cabinet, was granted an Urgent Question in the House of Commons:

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.

The minister responding was the Paymaster-General and Minister for the Cabinet Office, Nick Thomas-Symonds. He essentially ignored the question, assuring the Speaker of the government’s respect for the House, then launched into a turgid and boilerplate attack on the Conservatives, as if that was an adequate defence. Sir Julian Lewis (Con, New Forest East) summed up the problem:

Does he understand that if his defence is just to say, “We did it because the previous party did it,” nobody will ever break this cycle? His party has a big majority. It could just say sorry and resolve to do better in future.

Not only was there neither apology nor contrition, the minister did not even recognise that rules or conventions had been broken.

Trott’s reference to a breach of the Ministerial Code, which the government says it is “updating”, was to section 9, “Ministers and Parliament”. The code’s “general principle” really could not be clearer:

When Parliament is in session, the most important announcements of Government policy should be made in the first instance, in Parliament.

It is impossible to see how the Chancellor’s various remarks, as well as the more anonymised briefings and leaks, do not fall foul of this regulation. Significant measures within the Budget have been openly discussed with journalists rather than announced to the House of Commons. The government cannot deny this, nor has it tried to. Instead it has largely ignored complaints, except when saying dismissively that “the other lot did it”.

There was a time when the resignation of Labour Chancellor Hugh Dalton was a cautionary tale. On his way to the Chamber on 12 November 1947 to deliver a Supplementary Budget, he muttered a few details to a friendly journalist, John Carvel of The Star:

No more on tobacco; a penny on beer; something on dogs and pools but not on horses; increase in purchase tax, but only on articles now taxable; profits tax doubled.

With the surprising speed of the old-fashioned press, the story was published and on the streets 20 minutes before Dalton stood up to make his statement. This was market-sensitive information, improperly disclosed, and the Chancellor, quite properly, offered his resignation to the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee. When the Downing Street Press Secretary initially explained what had happened, Attlee was at first bemused. “Talked to the press? Why on Earth did he want to talk to the press?” he wondered.

The following day, in response to a Private Notice Question by Victor Raikes (Con, Liverpool Wavertree), Dalton made a full apology to the House. “I appreciate that this was a grave indiscretion on my part, for which I offer my deep apologies to the House,” he admitted. The Leader of the Opposition, Winston Churchill, was more inclined to blame Carvel for breaching Dalton’s confidence, and it seemed for a few hours as though the Chancellor was safe. By the evening, however, Attlee decided he should go, and Sir Stafford Cripps, Minister for Economic Affairs, was appointed to succeed him.

Many viewed Dalton’s indiscretion indulgently, and a little over six months later he returned to the cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. After the 1950 general election he became Minister of Town and Country Planning, and in January 1951 he assumed some of the Ministry of Health’s responsibilities for local government to become Minister for Local Government and Planning, but in truth he was never a central figure in the government or the Labour Party after his resignation from the Treasury.

Dalton’s behaviour was a relatively minor if characteristic piece of foolishness. Years afterwards, Attlee, interviewed on Granada Television, summed up the incident.

Perfect ass. His trouble was that he would talk. He always liked to have a secret to confide to somebody else to please him. He did it once too often.

It was, however, a drop in the ocean compared to the systematic and unapologetic disclosure of major policy changes which has been going on for days, if not weeks.

The Labour Party’s manifesto promised “a clean-up that ensures the highest standards of integrity and honesty”, “the highest of standards in public life”, “ministers… held to the highest standards”, and a Modernisation Committee “tasked with reforming House of Commons procedures, driving up standards, and improving working practices”. This is simply meaningless if it does not regard the House of Commons—to which the government is ultimately accountable—as the primary forum for scrutiny and debate.

The reason ministers should make policy announcements to the House first is not some antique sense of amour propre. It is because only there can the elected representatives of the British public ask questions of ministers and test policy in terms of intent, effectiveness and execution. MPs may not always do so as searchingly or as forensically as we might like, but they have an authority and a mandate which no journalist has, and it is an evasion of accountability for ministers to disclose significant policy decisions elsewhere. It is, in short, a message to voters that they do not matter. That cannot be allowed to go on.

It is understandable that ministers, still flushed with July’s general election victory and the first Labour government in 14 years, are high-handed and dismissive of Conservative complaints, especially when the Conservative record on exactly this matter is very far from spotless. While it may be understandable, however, it is not excusable. Nothing about previous Conservative breaches or disclosures invalidates the facts of Laura Trott’s accusations, and, indeed, there is no dispute over the facts at all. Ministers, most notably the Chancellor of the Exchequer herself, have openly discussed impending policy changes with journalists before they have been announced to the House of Commons. That is irrefutably the case, it is a gross discourtesy to the House, it is dismissive of voters and it is a breach of the Ministerial Code.

It really cannot be simpler than that. I am realistic enough to know that Rachel Reeves will not suffer a fit of conscience and tender her resignation. But at the very least either she or the Prime Minister should acknowledge this systematic briefing, apologise to the House and to the speaker, and give an undertaking it will not happen again. If they do not—and I am quite sure they will not—we will understand how they regard the House. We will also be able to judge exactly the attitude the Modernisation Committee will take towards making scrutiny of the executive more effective: it will do nothing in that regard. Sir Keir Starmer has an opportunity to prove that his repeated pledges of integrity and honesty were not verbiage, and that he really wants to change our political culture, by apologising and promising an end to this kind of activity. But he won’t. Because, like every politician before him, whether high-minded or cynical, he realises that the existing lapses suit him very well.