Ministerial Code: Compliance

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Leader of the House if she will make a statement on Government compliance with the general principles set out in paragraph 9.1 of the ministerial code.

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)]

The ministerial code is clear:

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

That is an important principle by which this Government stand. Already in this Session there have been 146 oral statements in just 133 sitting days—more than one per day, and more than the previous Government made in the entirety of their last Session. They have included six important statements from the Prime Minister and more than 20 from the Foreign Office, as well as statements on very important issues such as today’s statement on infected blood.

The Government and I take our obligations to Parliament very seriously, and the Prime Minister and I remind Cabinet colleagues of that regularly. There are also other ways by which the Government keep the House updated, including written ministerial statements—of which there have been 633 so far in this Session—responses and appearances before Select Committees, and thousands of responses to parliamentary questions.

Although the Government remain committed to making the most important announcements on the Floor of the House, we need to balance that with other demands on the House’s time, especially when there is great interest in the other business of the day. On occasion, developments and announcements will happen when the House is not sitting, or will emerge later in the sitting day. That is why it is not always possible to make every announcement to the House first. It is also important that Members have enough time to read and digest any relevant documents, and that they are given advance notice in order to be able to question a Minister effectively and seek answers.

However, as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I take this aspect of the ministerial code incredibly seriously, and I will continue to work with Mr Speaker and colleagues across the House to ensure that Parliament is respected, Members are informed, the Government are scrutinised effectively, and announcements are made to this House first.

[Kirsty Blackman]

In recent times we have seen an increasing trend of the Government failing to make statements to the House first, despite there being no barrier to them doing so. Last Thursday was a mess, with the Minister of State for Business and Trade trying to withdraw the statement on the UK-US trade agreement, despite Members having waited here for seven hours for the statement to materialise.

The decision to abolish NHS England was relayed to the House on 13 March, having been trailed in the media beforehand. On Wednesday 12 March, an urgent question was granted on an announcement that had been made the day before on the sustainable farming incentive being cancelled. On 6 March, a consultation on North sea energy that had been announced to the media the day before was relayed to the House in a statement. In February, the Government changed the refugee citizenship rules, and they still have not informed the House. On Monday this week, the Prime Minister announced the contents of the immigration White Paper via a speech that mirrored Enoch Powell, despite Parliament sitting later that day.

This is a consistent pattern of behaviour by the UK Government. I am concerned that there is little point in having a ministerial code if the Government can ignore one of the key principles with no sanction and apparently no consequences. The Government are nearly a year into their term, so disorganisation or a lack of familiarity with the rules can surely no longer be cited as reasons for consistent breaches of the code. I believe that the UK Government should adhere to the principles set out in the ministerial code, and that the Leader of the House must urgently set out how she intends to improve the situation and ensure that there is adherence.

[Lucy Powell]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising this urgent question, and I welcome the opportunity to emphasise that I take these matters very seriously. We have made a number of very big announcements to the House, often responding to world events in real time. I recognise—and I hope she will respect this—that there are judgments to be made and, at times, a balance to be struck, and I have the best interests of the House in mind.

Although the hon. Lady did not say so, there have been many times in this parliamentary Session when statements have been made to this House long before the media or anybody else were aware of them—for example, on prison capacity, increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, the response to the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s report into the women’s state pension age, and many others. On many of those occasions, the criticism that I received was that Members did not have enough time to properly consider the details of the statements before having the opportunity to question the Minister. Hard copies of the immigration White Paper, which is a lengthy and detailed document, were made available in the Table Office at 9.30 that morning to allow Members ample time to read and consider it before questioning the Home Secretary on the Floor of the House in a session that lasted an hour and 25 minutes.

The hon. Lady raised last Thursday’s statement on the US trade deal, and I think we can all recognise that that did not happen exactly as we would have liked. International events are often outside our control, and they do not take account of UK parliamentary sitting hours. The Trade Minister made an oral statement to the House as soon as he was able to do so, and I was trying to get the balance right. We wanted to make a statement when the maximum number of Members were here; otherwise, it would not have been made for several days, because it was a Thursday and the House was rising.

We are doing a lot. We are getting on with delivering on a huge number of policies, and we have signed unprecedented trade deals with other countries. The US trade deal, which is delivering lower tariffs for steel and car manufacturing, is absolutely critical, as is the India trade deal, which is delivering for Scottish distilleries and for Scotland. We are always trying to get the balance right, and I want to emphasise my commitment to making sure that when announcements can be made to this House first, they absolutely are.