The Budget: Why aren’t MPs told first?

Another Budget, another broadside from Mr Speaker, deploring the advance leaking of its contents by Ministers. After the Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced important changes to the Government’s rules on borrowing for investment, and Sir Keir Starmer signalled a rise in the minimum wage, both in advance of Budget Day, Sir Lindsay Hoyle rebuked them in an angry statement from the Chair. But Ruth and Mark conclude that Ministers have strong incentives to “pre-leak” Budget plans, making it unlikely this trend will change, especially given that the Speaker has no effective powers to punish them.

Meanwhile, as political tensions rise over the handling of the Southport murder case, they explore the reason MPs are not permitted to deliver a running commentary on live court cases – why Parliament operates a sub judice rule – and how this policy is enforced to protect judicial integrity.

And David Laws, a Lib Dem minister in the 2010 Coalition Government, stops by to discuss relations between his party and Labour and their tangled history which has led to a suspicious and conflicted relationship between the two parties, despite their relative ideological closeness. With Labour now in Government, and with the largest-ever contingent of Lib Dem MPs on the Opposition benches, what might the next chapter in this story hold?

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Producer: Richard Townsend

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