Speaker Hoyle criticises chancellor Rachel Reeves for early disclosure of budget details Sir Lindsay Hoyle has said it is “evident” to him that last week chancellor Rachel Reeves made significant policy announcements about fiscal rule changes in the media, rather than in parliament. He said he is glad there is a statement being made in the house later which he implies is “no coincidence” after he has expressed his anger. “It is not acceptable, I don’t want it to continue”, he said of budget details being paraded in the media before Wednesday. He said that often members are worried about getting a seat in the chamber for the budget speech, but “the way things are going” this won’t be a problem, as everything will have already been published. He also said that the party now in government used to complain about the previous administration doing this, and are now doing the same themselves. “Get your acts together on all sides,” he said. Closing summary Lindsay Hoyle earlier accused Chancellor Rachel Reeves of acting with “supreme discourtesy” towards MPs given her “premature disclosure” of budget details. In an angry rebuke delivered in parliament he 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. The bus fare cap in England will be extended for a further year, but rise from £2 to £3, Keir Starmer has said. The Liberal Democrats have described it as a “bus tax”, and Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick called the move “clueless”. The prime minister said the previous administration had only funded the policy up to the end of this year. Green co-leader Carla Denyer described the change as “the wrong approach”. Starmer has promised “better days ahead” and said the era of Tory neglect and “making working people pay the price” for their policies was over. Warning “there are no shortcuts” after 14 years of Tory-led government, he said “The time is long overdue for politicians in this country to level with you honestly about the trade-offs this country faces”. The use of the word “genocide” in relation to the war in Gaza risks undermining genocides such as the Holocaust, David Lammy has said. The foreign secretary was replying to a question by Conservative MP Nick Timothy, who asked whether the description of Israel’s actions in Gaza as “annihilation, extermination and genocide” was inappropriate. Meanwhile, Keir Starmer welcomed Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati to Downing Street for a bilateral meeting. The pair shook hands outside Number 10, where they are expected to discuss the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The prime minister offered Mikati his “condolences for the very many losses in your country”. Labour figures today have been repeatedly questioned by the media about the definition of “working person”. The prime minister said “I’m concerned with what’s in their payslip, and making sure that there is no more tax in their payslip”. Cabinet minister Pat McFadden said the budget would be the “most honest” in years. McFadden also issued a strong rebuke to shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s criticism of the Office for Budget Responsibility plans to publish a report about the country’s fiscal situation, saying the Tories “don’t want to hear the truth” about the financial situation they left for the new government. Foreign secretary David Lammy robustly defended his position and the topics he had raised with the Chinese in recent discussion during an urgent question in the Commons, where he was repeatedly criticised for not being strong enough. Lammy said it was “crass” to suggest in three months he could have brough about different outcomes to the previous government’s 14 years of diplomacy. Kemi Badenoch said the Tory leadership election was “existential” for the party. She nevertheless claimed the party could return to power after one term of a Labour government. Russell Findlay, the new Scottish Conservative leader, has proposed cutting free prescriptions, merging local authorities and abolishing quangos to deliver cuts in Scottish income tax rates. The adult prison population in England and Wales has dropped 3% after reaching record levels. That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and the UK politics live blog for today. Thanks for following along. Conservative shadow Treasury minister Gareth Davies has urged the government to say how much Labour plans to borrow in this Wednesday’s budget. Across the dispatch box from chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones, Davies pressed the government on what advice Treasury officials had given to ministers about the impact of Labour’s spending plans on interest rates. He also asked: “This Labour government are quick to spend but unwilling to explain, so can I ask the chief secretary finally, on behalf of the British people and the markets who are watching this statement so very nervously, what definition of public debt is the UK offering to lenders today and how much does the government plan to borrow under an expanded definition?” Jones said in his reply: “He has some brass neck standing up in this House telling this government how to behave after the years of his party’s maladministration over the last 14 years.” The minister had earlier set out changes to fiscal rules, known as the “stability rule, that we will pay for all day-to-day spending on public services from receipts” and the “investment rule, which will get debt falling as a proportion of our economy”. He said: “After years of chaos from the Conservative party, chaos that cost families, businesses and public services dear, the British people are now rightly looking to this new Labour government to clear up the mess from the last government, to fix the foundations and to rebuild Britain.” Meanwhile, Keir Starmer welcomed Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati to Downing Street for a bilateral meeting. The pair shook hands outside Number 10, where they are expected to discuss the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The prime minister offered Mikati his “condolences for the very many losses in your country”. Referring to the “long, shared and good history” between the UK and Lebanon, Starmer said it was important to discuss how to bring about a “cessation of hostilities” and “ensure that the UN resolution is not just words”. Mikati thanked Starmer for calling for a ceasefire in the region and for Britain’s support on humanitarian matters. The foreign secretary has said that if Israel severs its ties with the United Nations agency dedicated to humanitarian aid in Gaza, it could be grounds for sanctions. MPs asked David Lammy whether he would be introducing sanctions on Israeli politicians several times after he gave his statement on the Middle East on Monday afternoon. Labour’s Patricia Ferguson asked if new laws due to be debated in the Israeli parliament this week over whether to stop all cooperation with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees could hasten sanctions. She said: “Given the way in which the Knesset to vote on the issue on Unrwa today, will he, if that decision goes the way it seems to be going in which Israel will make it very difficult if not impossible for Unrwa to operate, with the consequence that humanitarian aid will not get into Gaza. “Is that not the point at which we have to consider serious sanctions against those who are proponents of such action?” Lammy said: “Yes, the truth is if Unrwa is brought to its knees, that would be a very very serious event indeed.” SNP MP for Dundee Central Chris Law called for sanctions for Yair Golan, the Israel Democrats Party leader who during an interview in June called for Palestinians to “starve” if Hamas did not return hostages. Lammy said: “These issues are being kept under review.” The use of the word “genocide” in relation to the war in Gaza risks undermining genocides such as the Holocaust, David Lammy has said. The foreign secretary was replying to a question by Conservative MP Nick Timothy, who asked whether the description of Israel’s actions in Gaza as “annihilation, extermination and genocide” was inappropriate. Timothy said: “Today, as on other occasions recently we’ve heard comments from the benches opposite that suggest somehow Israel is conducting a war of annihilation, extermination and of genocide. “There is obviously much suffering in Gaza, and we all accept that, but this terminology is completely inappropriate, not accurate, and is repeated by the protesters and the lawbreakers who are intimidating British Jews as we saw again this weekend. Will the foreign secretary take the opportunity to say that there is not a genocide occurring in the Middle East?” Lammy said: “There are quite properly legal terms that must be determined by international courts. “But I do agree with the honourable gentleman, those terms were largely used when millions of people lost their lives in crises like Rwanda, the second world war in the Holocaust, and the way that they are used now undermines the seriousness of that term.” Iran “should not respond” to Israeli airstrikes over the weekend, David Lammy has urged. The foreign secretary told the Commons on Monday: Targeted Israeli strikes hit military sites inside Iran including a missile manufacturer and an air defence base. This was in response to Iran’s escalatory ballistic missile attacks on Israel, condemned across the House. These attacks were the latest in a long history of malign Iranian activity. Its nuclear programme, with their total enriched uranium stockpile now reported by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to be 30 times the Jcpoa (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iran nuclear deal) limit, and political, financial, military support for militias including Hezbollah and Hamas. Let me be clear, the Government unequivocally condemns Iranian attacks on Israel. Lammy warned Iran and its proxies’ goal is the “complete eradication of the Israeli state” and added: “We do not mourn the deaths of the heads of proscribed terrorist organisations. The priority now is immediate de-escalation. Iran should not respond. “All sides must exercise restraint. We do not wish to see the cycle of violence intensified, dragging the whole region into a war with severe consequences.” The prime minister’s official spokesperson, responding to the Commons Speaker’s criticism, told reporters “it’s entirely routine for government to make announcements in the run up to budgets and spending reviews”. However, they added: But obviously we will also ensure that parliament has all the requisite time to scrutinise measures clearly. The chancellor will be in front of parliament on Wednesday and, indeed, there will be days of budget debate subsequently at which parliamentarians will be able to scrutinise budget measures. Lindsay Hoyle earlier accused Chancellor Rachel Reeves of acting with “supreme discourtesy” towards MPs given her “premature disclosure” of budget details. In an angry rebuke delivered in parliament he 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. In the announcement, Hoyle said Reeves’s interview were “major new policy announcements with significant and wide-ranging implications for the government’s fiscal policy and for the public finances.” He said: 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. Summary of the day so far … The bus fare cap in England will be extended for a further year, but rise from £2 to £3, Keir Starmer has said. The Liberal Democrats have described it as a “bus tax”, and Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick called the move “clueless”. The prime minister said the previous administration had only funded the policy up to the end of this year. Green co-leader Carla Denyer described the change as “the wrong approach” Starmer has promised “better days ahead” and said the era of Tory neglect and “making working people pay the price” for their policies was over. Warning “there are no shortcuts” after 14 years of Tory-led government, he said “The time is long overdue for politicians in this country to level with you honestly about the trade-offs this country faces” Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has angrily reprimanded the government and in particular Chancellor Rachel Reeves over details of the budget being announced in the media in advance, rather than in parliament. A statement on fiscal rules is to be made in the House of Commons later today Labour figures today have been repeatedly questioned by the media about the definition of “working person”. The prime minister said “I’m concerned with what’s in their payslip, and making sure that there is no more tax in their payslip”. Cabinet minister Pat McFadden said the budget would be the “most honest” in years McFadden also issued a strong rebuke to shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s criticism of the Office for Budget Responsibility plans to publish a report about the country’s fiscal situation, saying the Tories “don’t want to hear the truth” about the financial situation they left for the new government Foreign secretary David Lammy robustly defended his position and the topics he had raised with the Chinese in recent discussion during an urgent question in the Commons, where he was repeatedly criticised for not being strong enough. Lammy said it was “crass” to suggest in three months he could have brough about different outcomes to the previous government’s 14 years of diplomacy Kemi Badenoch said the Tory leadership election was “existential” for the party. She nevertheless claimed the party could return to power after one term of a Labour government Russell Findlay, the new Scottish Conservative leader, has proposed cutting free prescriptions, merging local authorities and abolishing quangos to deliver cuts in Scottish income tax rates The adult prison population in England and Wales has dropped 3% after reaching record levels Chris Osuh, our community affairs correspondent, writes for the Guardian that a report produced by the cross-party thinktank Demos and the Co-op has found that a lack of social mobility is costing the UK £19bn a year. My colleague Jessica Elgot has also suggested that the speaker was misguided earlier in his vociferous criticism of Labour’s pre-budget announcements and briefing. She writes: Sorry but the last time when big measures were not briefed, it was such a shock to markets that it caused a run on sterling and the Bank of England had to save pension funds from collapse. Pitch-rolling is not always a bad thing. Imagine - just imagine - if Reeves had only announced her borrowing changes on the day to parliament. Not serious. In parliament the foreign secretary has made a statement about the Middle East. David Lammy said the government unequivocaly condemns Iranian attacks on Israel. He said he had spoken to the foreign ministers of both Iran and Israel and urged restraint from both. On northern Gaza, he said nine in ten Gazans had been displaced in the course of the year, and said “there is no excuse for Israel’s government’s current restrictions on humanitarian aid”. “They must let aid in now,” he said. He added that current restrictions “fly in the face” of Israel’s commitments, and said they are a rebuke to friends of Israel who have supported its right to defend itself, while also funding humanitarian aid for the Palestinian people. He said it was “a matter of profound regret” that Israel’s parliament has debated closing down access to Gaza for Unrwa. On Lebanon, Lammy said the government had led efforts to respond, with a swift call for a ceasefire. He said the prime minister was meeting with Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister. Lammy said ceasefires, international law and diplomacy were the way to deescalate the situation in the region. “It is a source of deep frustration”, Lammy said, that progess had not been made. He said the government would continue its efforts in the region “So that one day they might all live side-by-side in peace and security.” A dissenting voice to the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, hauling the government and in particular the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, over the coals on budget details being published in the media in advance is Hugo Gye, political editor at the i, who argues the counterpoint, that “if the government genuinely refused to say anything about the budget before its delivery you would find a) even more damaging speculation doing the rounds b) a potentially quite violent market reaction on the day”. Readers with keen memories may remember the incident in 2013 when it appears that the Evening Standard in London had been briefed the whole of George Osborne’s budget, as evidenced by one journalist tweeting out the paper’s front page containing details before Osborne had spoken. Not that many of us however, I suspect, remember directly the time in 1947 that Labour chancellor Hugh Dalton resigned after a different evening paper, the Star, published his budget before he spoke. In parliament Iain Duncan Smith has raised an urgent question about the UK’s relations with China, and recent contact between the foreign secretary and Chinese officials. Foreign secretary David Lammy robustly defended his position and the topics he had raised with the Chinese, and said he would take no lessons from the Conservative party, whose attitude to relations with China changed course several times, he says. Emily Thornberry has invited Lammy to appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee which she now chairs. Lammy says he would be happy to appear before the committee whenever “she commands”. Alicia Kearns, Conservative MP and shadow minister for foreign affairs, accused Lammy of giving an account of meetings that differed greatly from that given by the Chinese. “That was really quite bad,” Lammy replies to her question. Speaker Hoyle criticises chancellor Rachel Reeves for early disclosure of budget details Sir Lindsay Hoyle has said it is “evident” to him that last week chancellor Rachel Reeves made significant policy announcements about fiscal rule changes in the media, rather than in parliament. He said he is glad there is a statement being made in the house later which he implies is “no coincidence” after he has expressed his anger. “It is not acceptable, I don’t want it to continue”, he said of budget details being paraded in the media before Wednesday. He said that often members are worried about getting a seat in the chamber for the budget speech, but “the way things are going” this won’t be a problem, as everything will have already been published. He also said that the party now in government used to complain about the previous administration doing this, and are now doing the same themselves. “Get your acts together on all sides,” he said. My colleague Polly Toynbee has published her latest column, in which she argues that Rachel Reeves’s budget “needs to sing ‘Here comes the sun’ after too many grey months of grim prognosis.” Kemi Badenoch has just been given a warning by the speaker in the House of Commons after raising questions about Jas Athwal, MP for Ilford South since July 2024. After she referred to stories in the media about Athwal’s alleged activities as a landlord, Lindsay Hoyle asked Badenoch whether she had notified the MP in advance that she intended to mention him. She said she would need to check with her office whether that had happened. He admonished her, and told her to change the subject of her questions. Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch are making their final pitches to Conservative party members in the leadership election this week. Jenrick has posted today to say that it was time to “end the drama, end the excuses and just deliver.” He also rather unexpectedly made a pitch for the nightclubbing vote, by posting a picture of himself in a night club in Ilford, calling for a revitalisation of the late night economy. For her part, Badenoch appeared on BBC Radio 2 today. She denied that the position she was vying for was “a caretaker leader job”. She told listeners it was possible for the Conservatives to get back into power after one term of Labour in government, but that this leadership election was “existential” for the Tories. Badenoch said: What I tell everyone is that we have one chance to get this right. This is existential. I actually feel that if we’re not careful, this could be the end of the Conservative Party. There is a Reform Party on the right that says it’s the real conservative party. We need to be more confident, more authentic in our values. But we also need to ensure that we understand what we got wrong and explain to the public, apologise and create a better offer. So there’s everything to play for. It can be done in one term, but it’s certainly something that will be the toughest thing we’ve ever had to do.