It’s a pleasure.

I’m quite good at pub quizzes. Make it about sport.

Me, probably.

Great quote! Whoever said that is absolutely right.

I could sign them.

What I said then was absolutely right; it is what I would say now.

Nothing has changed; that is absolutely right. Let me say at the outset, the Prime Minister and I and the whole Government take our responsibilities to Parliament incredibly seriously. We want to restore respect for Parliament, which was diminished under the previous Government. Part of that is bringing important announcements to the House, where possible. As I said to the IfG, there is no tougher crowd to ensure that what you are announcing is a good policy in the first place. The Ministerial Code is clear on that—I am sure you have interrogated the wording. We can, of course, do better. We are constantly looking to improve and ensure that we live up to our expectations and high standards. These are collective decisions, in which we take a number of other factors into account on any given day. We do this not just because it is in the Ministerial Code; it is rightly an expectation of the House. It is an expectation I have as a member of the Cabinet and Leader of the House, and would have as a Back-Bench MP, as part of the House collectively. Whether or not it is in the Ministerial Code, those are the expectations of the House. The House has a number of devices available to it when those expectations are not being met. I can give you the key stats on the number of statements we have or have not made, and how they compare, but we can come on to that.

As the Ministerial Code makes clear, important statements should be made to the House first when Parliament is in session, when Parliament is sitting. It makes use of the word “should”, as well. When Parliament is in recess, that is obviously difficult. There are challenges, for example, at the weekend, or when the House is not yet sitting, such as first thing on a Monday morning. When there is an international summit or occasion and the timing of that is not done around the House’s statement or sitting times, that is obviously a challenge. Ministers are very keen to make statements to the House, and at the moment I would say that demand for making statements sometimes outstrips the slots available. On any given day, we also have to weigh up the business of the House that day, how many speakers there might be and any important pieces of legislation. There have been many occasions when having too many statements has curtailed an important debate happening the same day. As you all know, we try not to do statements on the days that Opposition debates are happening, so yesterday, because we knew that a very important statement needed to be made to the House first, I had to put a business of the House motion down to protect the time for the Opposition debate. We take into account a range of factors daily. That is why we make sure that Ministers tabling written ministerial statements have to give notice of them the day before, so the titles are on the Order Paper for the day, and then the WMS is published on the day. I think we have made over 800 WMSs this Session, which is a huge number. You can also keep Parliament up to date via means other than an oral statement—a written ministerial statement is obviously one of them, as is coming to a Select Committee like this and making an announcement.

Some might say so.

Absolutely. Actually, I think that the Leader of the House is both those things: the Leader of the House is both the representative of the House sitting in Cabinet, but they are also the Cabinet’s representative to the House, especially in regard to House and Government business. If you asked any one of my Cabinet colleagues, including the Prime Minister, whether I regularly—and robustly, at times—remind Cabinet colleagues and other Ministers of how important it is to take their responsibilities to the House seriously, you would not find a member of the Cabinet or Minister who does not say, “Lucy very regularly reminds us of that and enforces it.” I believe it is very important that the Government of the day are accountable to the House of Commons, and that legislation and policies are better as a result of being scrutinised, stress tested and amended—all those things that House is here to do. That is a good thing about our parliamentary democracy, and it sets us apart from other Governments around the world. We do not operate an Executive order-type Government; things have to be passed and agreed to by a majority of the House, and that is a very high bar. It is everyone’s interest that they respect the House and take it very seriously.

Maybe there has been a slight misunderstanding. I was not saying that that was a reason not to make a statement; just that it is a reason not to make a statement first, necessarily. If a Minister made an announcement on a Monday morning, for example, I would expect them to come to the House on the Monday afternoon, at the first opportunity. This is not about this Government at all, but a development over 30 years or more. We now operate in what is not even a 24/7 news environment, but a minute-by-minute one, with stories breaking on social media throughout the day, leaks happening, things happening somewhere else and all that kind of thing. We have to try to manage making sure that the House is informed and statements are made at the earliest opportunity when things are evolving and moving quickly or announcements are being made. That is always the balance. When it comes to important statements—Budgets or the strategic defence review, which I am sure we will come to—I am strongly of the view that the reports should be laid to the House first and those statements made to the House first. With other announcements made to the media and so on, you just need to make sure that you are coming to the House at the earliest opportunity later that day.

When Parliament is in session, the most important announcements of Government policy should be made in the first instance to Parliament. There are quite a few subjective words in that, I should be clear. You also have to strike the balance between—

We were actually in recess.

We can come on to the SDR; I am sure we will. There are several things to unpack here, so let us unpack a few of them. Can we do better? Yes, we can. Are we doing better than the previous Government? Absolutely we are. It is really important to make that point here.

I am just saying that, as a trajectory of improvement, this is not going backwards but upwards. We have made 192 oral statements to the House in 170 sitting days. That is more than one a day. We have also tabled over 800 written ministerial statements. In the last Session, the Government made 72 oral statements in a year over 101 sitting days—way fewer than one a day. What I am saying is that the trajectory is going upwards, because we take this issue incredibly seriously.

It is an important comparison. If you look back over that whole Session, what has changed over time—I am sure you will agree—is the expectations about oral statements. The use of urgent questions, even when I was first elected 12 years ago, was very rare. The use of urgent questions has now become much more part of the norm. The bigger question, which the Modernisation Committee I chair is looking at, is about the use of parliamentary time in the day and balancing all the pressures. I speak to colleagues, and sometimes they would like to participate more in statements and urgent questions than in big debates on legislation. Are we always getting the balance of that right? Should statements come at a different point in the day and so on, because there is much more demand, and the use of urgent questions has gone up?

It does not say “all”. It says “the most important”, which is a collective decision made every day, every week.

Such as?

Do you want me to go through that?

Yes, but to be clear, the SDR was published to the House—published, as opposed to people being allowed to go into a reading room and so on, earlier in the day, in the form of embargoed copies. We can come on to the specifics for journalists, but the SDR was published to the House first. Another balance that we need to get is that we need to give Members ample time to read a document before the questioning of the oral statement. I have had many criticisms of that not being the case, of it being the other way around—for example, with the announcement about the WASPI decision, responding to the Parliamentary Ombudsman report, that was made to the House first, but the criticism was the other way. Members did not feel that they had had enough time to consider it before questioning the Secretary of State on that matter. Those, too, are trade-offs, which are in the guide to parliamentary work in the Ministerial Code. May I be really clear? The Ministerial Code is a matter for the Prime Minister—it is the Prime Minister’s Ministerial Code. As I said at the outset, however, even if that were not in the Ministerial Code—but it is in the expectations of the House and in the Standing Orders of the House—it would be an expectation of the House. I would still be in front of your Committee being asked whether we were living up to the expectations of the House in coming to the House with important policy announcements, so that members of the Government are adequately scrutinised. I would not want this Committee to get too bogged down in the Ministerial Code aspect, although I know that is what Mr Speaker has asked you to look at. I strongly believe that the expectation of the House is, rightly, a high one, when it comes to such matters.

Of the House—yes, the Ministerial Code reflects those of the House is what I am saying.

It is very important to set the context of a trajectory going upwards, and of a Government that takes these matters seriously, and demonstrating that—

I will come on to your question. I think that is an important context for this Committee to appreciate. This is not a trajectory going downwards; it is one going significantly upwards and one that we take incredibly seriously. As I say, a range of things are taken into account. The most important Government announcements are made to the House first. I am sure we will have a much deeper discussion about the strategic defence review and what was or was not given to who, when, and how that was done, but there has been the strategic defence review, a Budget and important policy documents. For example, on the publication of the NHS 10-year plan last week, is that to say whether a trail of that document, a visit relating to that document, or media handling was done elsewhere in advance, which is often the case? That was the case in that situation, and has been the case for many years now. But however many pages the NHS 10-year plan is—I think it is about 169—that document was published to the House first, with the Secretary of State coming 45 minutes later, giving enough time for Members to consider that document, for a two-hour statement. The most important statements—the significant statements, especially where there is significant documentation sitting alongside them, such as the national policy planning framework—and things that are important matters to the House are made to the House first. Often, responses to inquiries or responses to other reports are also made to the House first. Can we constantly review that and make sure we are doing that better? Yes, we can. Are there things where you might take a view about what is the most important of that day? Are there announcements that might be done via press release and then in a statement in the House later? That has always been the case and that still is the case, but for the most important ones it is not.

The response to the sentencing review was given to the House first. I accept that there was an issue in respect of the prisoner recall. My understanding—I obviously asked about it myself—was that that was not supposed to be said in that press conference in that way, because there were later things. On that occasion, we fell short.

I think she had not understood it to be as significant as it was. As I say, there are times that we do not always get this right.

It was very important. As you know, that was jointly signed by the President of the United States and the Prime Minister. The timing of that was completely out of our control and was subject to the availability and timing of the US President.

International treaties are routinely signed and delivered jointly elsewhere, and then a Minister comes straight to the House.

The tuition fees statement was made to the House first.

Planning reforms were as well. Tuition fees was made to the House first.

Budget statements—

No. With tuition fees, there was an unauthorised leak, which was investigated and which was about 20 minutes before. The statement had already been advertised and agreed, and that was being made to the House first. Budget statements are always made to the House. Since time immemorial, Governments have, for various reasons, often to do with laying grounds with the markets and all that kind of thing, trailed aspects of Budgets before they are given to the House, but they are given to the House first, and we are all here to hear them. We know that that is an important thing. On the UK-US trade deal, the statement was given to the House at the earliest opportunity, at the end of the day. That was quite a difficult thing to manage at the time, but that trade deal was not actually signed until 3 pm. We strain every sinew to try to do this and, on occasions where there have been unauthorised leaks, those matters have been investigated. The most important statements to the House have, for the most part, been made to the House first, but as I said on the Floor of the House and I will say again now, we are constantly looking at ourselves and making sure that we are doing that where we can.

I do, because we also produce for Ministers a guide to making legislation and a guide to Parliament, and they set out a clear process by which Ministers should consider these things and the steps they should take. As I say, that also involves making sure that Ministers table written ministerial statements as well, because it is not just through oral statements that announcements are made to the House. A written ministerial statement is also an important tool for making the House aware of issues, and the titles of those go on the Order Paper the night before, so people know they are coming. We set out in the guide the process for Ministers making statements.

It is not, actually. For statements, it is not the Speaker—

It is entirely the Government; it is nothing to do with the Speaker. Even though we routinely say, “With permission, Mr Speaker”, that is a courtesy. The Government of the day decide which statements are happening.

Yes, they are for the Speaker.

No. I have regular meetings with the Chief Whip and No. 10, because the three people who have to agree to a statement happening are me, the Chief Whip and the Prime Minister. I oversee that process and I communicate the outcome of that process; I receive the bids and manage that process. We notify the Speaker in the morning of which statements are coming that day. Obviously, I work very closely with the Speaker in general, so I will try to let him know in advance, as well as other colleagues, what I am expecting later in the week, just to give people a sense of what is happening. But we formally notify the Speaker’s Office in the morning. He has his Speaker’s conference, the timing of which depends on the sitting hours and which is made up of him, the Deputy Speakers, the Clerks and so on. They consider urgent question applications at that point. They already know, going into that conference, what statements are planned, and then it is up to the Speaker and the Speaker’s conference to agree to urgent questions.

I am not going to mention individual staff members. I do not think that—

Absolutely, it is No. 10. I meet with that team, the Whips Office and other relevant people every Monday. We go through announcements, the grids and parliamentary business for the subsequent weeks—two or three weeks hence. Officials in No. 10 meet with my team as well, every Thursday, and then we have a decision-making process every morning to finalise the statements every day. We are in lockstep on that, and I will look at things that are in the grid and make sure that we have statements on them or, where they are the most significant things, that they are coming to the House first. We will work together to make sure that those things work in tandem. For example, during recess or on Fridays and so on, we try to avoid things that really should be published to the House first as best we can.

I don’t know—you would have to ask the Speaker about that.

We make sure we notify the Speaker of statements well in advance of his Speaker’s conference, because he needs to know what is coming that day to decide whatever else. For Members, going on the annunciator and getting sent round by all the various Whips is the business of the day, the statements and any urgent questions that have been granted, so Members would need to know about that in advance. We obviously have had a situation—for example, the Chair mentioned the UK-US trade deal, and there have been some other issues. There was a Northern Ireland statement we needed to do at the end of the day because things had evolved during the day. Sometimes we know those things are coming, so I will speak to the Speaker, because I need the Speaker’s permission to put on a statement at a different time of the day. If we know something is coming, or if something evolves very quickly during the day, I will speak to the Speaker about whether we can put that on at a different time in the day, often at the end of the day.

You would have to ask him about that, but if something really major happens through the day—a terrorist attack or something awful happening—conversations would happen between myself, the Chief Whip and the Speaker very quickly. On some occasions, that might be initiated by the Speaker, who says, “I really think the House should have a statement later today. Can you arrange one?” and that kind of thing. It is an evolution, and we have—

I think for all the examples the Chair gave me, a statement had been scheduled. For the strategic defence review, there were obviously questions about who had access to what information earlier, and we can go into that detail. On the tuition fees statement, we were absolutely planning to make that to the House first. As the Secretary of State was on her way over here to make the statement, the media outlet got hold of it and put it on Twitter, but she was standing on her feet 20 minutes later. On the UK-US trade deal, we had made it clear that there would be a statement later that day, which there was. With the Budget, everyone knows it is coming, and it is scheduled long in advance. In my time overseeing these things—I cannot speak for previous times—I do not think there has been an occasion when a statement had not been scheduled or was not going to happen, apart from when there has been something fast moving. As I said, I think there was a Northern Ireland statement that we needed to make at the end of a day, which we did not know about at the start of the day, because a court case came to a quicker conclusion that left some question marks open. There are those occasions, and we will make every effort to keep the House informed. As I said earlier, when I was first elected 12 years ago, which is not that long ago, urgent questions were a device that was very rarely used. The previous Speaker started to make really strong use of urgent questions, which existed in Standing Orders but were not used. Previously, Back-Bench MPs had much fewer devices to hold the Government to account, and now they are used far more widely. I think the applications for urgent questions are going up significantly year on year.

As I have said before, I think the Ministerial Code reflects the expectations of the House, and vice versa. The Ministerial Code is a document for the Prime Minister; he has a constitutional role, on behalf of the King, to inform, appoint and dismiss Ministers. Therefore, it is his code for upholding the standards, behaviours and expectations of Ministers and Government as a whole. I think the Ministerial Code reflects what the House would expect anyway. Even if there were not anything in the Ministerial Code about making announcements to Parliament, we would still be having this hearing now on whether you think we are doing that well enough compared to the expectations of the House. Those expectations actually exist in the conventions and Erskine May as well.

I am sure will hear from the Speaker on this issue. Obviously, the Speaker is the Chair of the House, and he is there, with the will of the House, to reflect its views, rather than his own.

What I would say about that particular instance was that two were urgent questions granted. An urgent question was granted on a particular aspect of the SDR, and there was an urgent question granted against me on the process of the SDR, both of which, as it turned out, delayed the SDR coming to the House. Otherwise, the SDR would have been the first statement to the House at 3.30 pm. As it was, it came to the House at 5.30 pm. Therefore, there was a delay in the opportunity for MPs to question. They are a matter for the Speaker; I am not going to criticise him for granting those urgent questions. I would not want it to be taken as a criticism, but—

I would say a couple of things. The proportion of UQs granted in this Parliament is significantly lower than in the previous Parliament. The number of applications is going up significantly as it is seen as a more topical and more everyday device than it once was. I think the use of UQs is going up because people want to use them, but the proportion being granted is significantly lower than it was in the last Session. Secondly, your opening question to me was: what is my job? I am very well aware of the devices that the House has at its disposal when it is not satisfied that a Minister is appropriately coming to the House, not just to make announcements but to make themselves available, to be open to scrutiny and so on. I will advise Ministers that if they do not come forward on such a day or with such a topic, I feel that an urgent question might be granted, and therefore they should do it. Back Benchers can also apply for SO24 emergency debates. They can table written parliamentary questions. They can raise matters with me at business questions, as they do regularly. They can raise points of order. There are lots of embarrassing ways for the House to bring those things to the fore.

As I said, the Ministerial Code is a matter for the Prime Minister. As you know, there is an Independent Adviser on the Ministerial Code. The Prime Minister, in taking office, wants to make sure that we are a Government of service and that we uphold the highest possible standards. That is why he has given the Adviser on the Ministerial Code additional powers to instigate their own investigations, which was not the case previously. We have also upped the ante in terms of the transparency of ministerial declarations, for example. Outside interests are now to be declared once a quarter, instead of once every six months. Gifts and hospitality declarations are now published every month, which is something the previous Government promised to do for three years, and we did that within our first few months of coming into office. I just want to paint the picture that we are strengthening transparency on ministerial accountability and standards. We have given extra powers to the Adviser on Ministerial Standards. As the Adviser has made clear to you in correspondence, he sees his role, I think rightly, as looking at the behaviour and standards of Ministers individually, and not those decisions for which the Government as a whole have collective responsibility. Whether a statement does or does not take place on a particular day is, for the most part, not a decision for a particular Minister. It is a decision that is taken collectively. For example, just in the past few weeks, a number of bids were made to me for oral statements that people wanted but that had to be made through written ministerial statements because there was a lot of competition for statements on the day, and they could not all be granted. Ministers may make themselves available, but it might not be their decision. They are collective decisions of the Government, rather than individual decisions.

Obviously the Prime Minister would determine those. If there was a wilful attempt by a Minister to give information to the media that had not been agreed, or if a Minister was absolutely refusing to come to the House on an important matter on which the Prime Minister wanted that Minister to come to the House, then I can tell you—knowing the Prime Minister well, as I do—that he takes an extremely dim view of Ministers behaving in that way. I cannot think of an example where anybody has behaved in that way, because I can tell you now that if they did, they would no longer be a Minister. It is a matter for the Prime Minister to determine whether the Ministerial Code is being upheld. The process around giving oral statements—I think that is the thing we are focusing on here, rather than written ministerial statements and so on—is a decision taken collectively by me, the Chief Whip and the Prime Minister on behalf of the Cabinet. They are not therefore decisions for a Minister. If the Chief Whip, I or anybody else discovered there were misdemeanours going on in relation to a Minister’s responsibilities to Parliament, those would be relayed to the Prime Minister, I am sure.

No, I would not, actually. This comes from the top, from the Prime Minister, and what I would say is that he takes his responsibility and the responsibility of this Government to Parliament, and to respecting Parliament, incredibly seriously. That is why he and I remind Cabinet colleagues of that on a regular basis. I write to Cabinet colleagues. I raise these matters in person with people. There are ongoing discussions and negotiations about when things will happen, how they will happen and so on, making sure that the most important announcements of Government policy are made to the House first, and in good time for Members to consider them. As I say, there are a range of factors that we take into account every day that might mean a particular announcement cannot be made on the Floor of the House on that particular day. We would then expect a WMS to be tabled, which is the way it would be done. The Chair has given some examples, and we have gone through them, where statements were advertised and planned, where some information may have been inadvertently—with the right intention—or in other ways made available to other people in advance. I am happy to go through some of those examples in more detail. We are endeavouring to do what we set out.

The Ministerial Code, Ministers’ behaviour and the appointment and dismissal of Ministers is a constitutional role for the Prime Minister, who is tasked with doing that on behalf of His Majesty. That is the constitutional role of the Prime Minister. As we have discussed, whether or not this particular matter is in the Ministerial Code, it would still be an expectation of the House that Ministers make themselves available to the House regularly and often, particularly when they have something new to say, and to bring that to the House. The House has a range of devices at its disposal. They are all the ones we have discussed: urgent questions, points of order, written questions, Prime Minister’s questions, business questions and so on. It also has much more serious ones, as we saw in the last Parliament, when a Committee of the House—the Privileges Committee, the majority of which were Government MPs—held an inquiry on whether the Prime Minister of the day had misled the House. They found that the Prime Minister of the day had misled the House, which had incredibly serious and huge consequences for that Prime Minister, who resigned as a result. Where the House feels that a Minister has misled it, has not been forthcoming or has not made themselves available, it has a range of tools at its disposal to deal with that, but the Ministerial Code is a matter for the Prime Minister.

I can’t remember who Hugh Dalton was.

Forgive me for not knowing—

More recently, a good friend of mine, Bev Hughes, who is now in the Lords, resigned as an immigration Minister because information she had been given by her officials turned out not to be correct and she repeated it to the House, so it does happen. Let us not underestimate what the Privileges Committee did. I know it is not particularly about this issue, but it was about things that were said at the Dispatch Box to this House by the Prime Minister. This House has high expectations and high standards. Even in this Parliament, we have seen Ministers have to correct the record.

Well, we still do, actually, because the Standards Committee does.

I disagree with your characterisation of the situation. Nobody here has given me an egregious example of where one of the most important Government announcements has not been made to the House.

No, I don’t—look, I think we are talking at slight cross-purposes here. Obviously, from Mr Speaker, who I speak to regularly about these matters—and I fully respect his role as Speaker in holding us to account for these things—there is this question about, on some occasions, for some types of announcements, how much is given, trailed, done at the weekend or whatever in the media, and how much is given to the House first. On the big issues, like the strategic defence review, the NHS 10-year plan or a Budget, where there is a big report, a White Paper or something like that—a serious Government document—those statements have been made to the House, and they are made to the House. I suppose the issue is the word “first” in some cases—

But there isn’t an example where a Minister has wilfully—

No, that is not what I am saying at all. I absolutely welcome—

No, no, I was just going on to make another point. So, look, can we do better? Believe me, I am the person in Government who is constantly reminding Ministers to make sure they factor these things in completely into any comms plan—any plans they have—and that, as you said in your opening, coming to the House is not only important in itself, but is incredibly important for making sure that that policy is the best it can be and is properly scrutinised. That is something that a Minister should relish and factor into any comms plans for those announcements. Can we go back to the world of the 1940s, where there are no press releases, no Sunday morning political shows that need filling, no social media avenues and no 24/7 news avenues, where we then have to wait until 12.30 to issue a press release—

On every single thing that the Government is saying.

No, because I do not believe that is the interpretation of the Ministerial Code. But as I say, and as I have said throughout—

It says “When Parliament is in session, the most important”—that is a judgment that we will make—“announcements of government…should”—should—“be made” to the House first. That is what it says. There are many times when that would not apply, or there are many times when we would make different judgments about what that is or is not. By the way, “announcement” is not just an oral statement; it is a written ministerial statement; it is coming to a Select Committee to make it known; or it is answering a parliamentary question. There are many other ways in which those announcements can be, and are, made.

As I say, you can have a look at what I would regard as far more egregious examples under the previous Government—

When statements were never even forthcoming.

Well, no, it is not about two wrongs.

I know. It is not about two wrongs—

Yes, absolutely. And I take these things very seriously. However—

No, I think what is—

Fine. Yes.

Just to be clear—

Again, I do not accept the characterisation. First of all, it is not for Ministers themselves to decide. These are collective decisions that are taken by the Government all the time. Those decisions are taken weekly and daily, and they are collective. I ask colleagues to consider the big difference between someone making a big announcement, especially on an big issue, but not coming forward with a statement to the House at all—so far, no one can give me an example of that—and the situation, which I thought we were going to get on to, in which a statement is advertised and is forthcoming, but some of the details or information is not given to Opposition parties in advance of it. In the case of the Speaker granting two urgent questions on the day of the SDR, the SDR was coming to the House, and the document was being published to the House first on that day. The UQs were granted in lieu of that. That is significantly different from a number of occasions that I remember in the past—this is why I hold these things up greatly—when announcements were made during recesses, on Sundays and so on, and there was no statement. These were really big statements around the cancellation of HS2, for example, or the proposed abolition of the BBC licence fee. No statement was ever forthcoming. It was not that they were made when Parliament was not in Session; there was no attempt to bring that to the House. That is quite significant. When you are doing a statement—

It is about the most important statements. We can have different views about that. There is a certain amount of subjectivity to that. Can we improve? Yes, we can improve. Do we take them very seriously? Yes, we do. They are subjective.

I have said that many times.

The SDR was incredibly important, and the SDR was published to the House first.

As I say, I have looked into this very closely. The Secretary of State himself has apologised for some of that. Let me just go through with you what happened when, and why it happened. I also make it clear that the Secretary of State, after discussions with me and the Speaker, undertook to write to the Speaker—he has since done so—to look into exactly what happened and, more importantly, set out a future process for how SDRs would be shared in advance and with whom, so that it is public knowledge and understood by everybody. As was the case with the three previous SDRs, embargoed reading rooms were established in the Ministry of Defence for security-cleared individuals to read—not take away a copy, not have a copy, but read—the SDR in advance. I have a list here of exactly who was invited to that. They were defence industry companies, industry bodies of course, representatives of the defence sectors, and a small number of journalists. They were embargoed; they were not allowed to say what they saw in the reading rooms. That was also offered to Opposition spokespeople from both parties and to the Select Committee Chairs and so on, some of whom declined the offer; others took it up. The copies of the full SDR, published and made public, were made available to the Vote Office just beforehand. Traditionally with an SDR, the copies are made available at the end; it is a bit like a Budget. They are usually made available when the Minister sits down. The Secretary of State took the view that that was not in the best interests of the House, so he made it available in advance.

I think the intention was right. Some members of the Opposition parties did not take those offers to read through the document in advance and to get the briefings in advance. That was up to them, and I can see that. I have said, at the Dispatch Box on the Floor of the House and in private, that the intention of ensuring that the key people had an opportunity to read it in advance, so that they could question the Secretary of State both on the Floor of the House and subsequently, was too broad. That is why the Secretary of State has reviewed that. He has set out a process for who would have the embargoed copies in reading rooms. People did not have hard copies; the hard copies were made available to the House. The permanent secretary at the Department has been clear that no commercially sensitive information was given to any industry leaders as part of that. It is not for me to adjudicate on that.

Obviously there was a notable breach of the embargo, which was not by somebody who had been invited into the reading room. I think it was raised on the Floor of the House at the time by Iain Duncan Smith and others that Tom Sharpe, a freelance columnist for The Telegraph, wrote a piece that went up online about two hours before the Secretary of State spoke to the Commons. That journalist had not actually been invited to the reading room; that journalist who broke the embargo had had an authorised verbal briefing by the Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff.

I think it was authorised, but it was under embargo—a verbal briefing—so he had not actually read the report. He said in the article that he had read it, which he had not, because he had not been in the reading room. He broke the embargo, which was obviously very serious. The Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey, takes these things incredibly seriously. We saw that again yesterday, when he came to the House first with an incredibly serious and important matter.

No, but that is why I say it: because it is used as a proof point that somehow Ministers like John Healey are breaking the Ministerial Code. That is where I do, quite genuinely, push back.

It was not too lax, but it was too wide, in my humble opinion. In endeavouring to let people know, there were too many people—

As I say, not by the Minister or anybody like that.

Absolutely, but I think it is really important to set the context, because the letter from the Speaker came to this Committee as a result of the SDR. The two UQs that you mentioned, which were on the day of the SDR and which delayed the Secretary of State from making his announcement, were about the SDR. I do not think we can have it both ways. Either there is a suggestion that he broke the Ministerial Code, and therefore we need to have this conversation, or there is a suggestion that we had the right intention but we could have done some things better, but actually we were making a statement to the House.

That is a judgment for the Speaker.

They are a matter for the Speaker, and it is not a judgment we share. Q53        Markus Campbell-Savours: You mentioned that there were a number of people invited to the reading rooms. I was in the Chamber on the day. I remember what I thought was quite convincing anger from the official Opposition. How many Opposition Members were invited in, and how many actually took part? There appeared to be some denial of that when it was raised from the Dispatch Box by the Minister.

He was offered a briefing, which he declined. Markus Campbell-Savours: Anyone else from the official Opposition?

The Lib Dem spokesperson accepted the briefing and had the briefing. The Defence Committee Chair had the briefing. The Speaker declined the briefing. As I say, the establishment of a reading room for industry leaders and media and so on was the normal practice for SDRs up to that point.

It is not my code to rewrite. Again, I do not think that taking a binary view of these things is necessarily helpful. I certainly do not feel that there has been a breach of the Ministerial Code, but that is a matter for the Prime Minister to adjudicate, not me. Do I feel that, on all occasions, we are as forthcoming as we should be to the House? Are we getting the balance right? Are we getting those judgments right on all occasions? Absolutely not, and we can improve. I want the Committee to be really clear about that. Have we improved things from what we inherited? Yes, we have. I know that you do not want to have that conversation, but I do, because I think it is really important, and that is what I am judging myself on. Are we doing this better than what we inherited? Yes, we are. Have we got further to go in doing that? Can we think of more creative ways of potentially doing that, so that there are other ways in which the House can be informed about things? There is a limited time in every day that we can use for oral statements, and this Government is doing a lot. As the Chair said at the beginning, we are an incoming Government. We are doing a lot, so we are making those trade-offs every day in how we best manage those kinds of announcement. We can definitely improve. I would not want to make this a binary thing where somehow you are saying that there are breaches. A breach is a thing for the Prime Minister to determine, and I personally think that it is a very serious allegation for someone to make. As the Chair has just said, there is no suggestion that the Secretary of State for Defence breached the Ministerial Code, yet we are here today because of the SDR. Let’s not make it so binary. Can we improve? Yes, we can.

No, but the letter from the Speaker came as a result of that.

Those are the trade-offs, and we have to balance them all the time. As I say to him regularly, if we want the House to start sitting at 6 am so that someone can come here and say something before they appear on the “Today” programme, let’s have a conversation about that. We are trying to get our messages out to the public. The House of Commons is also an important vehicle for doing that, as it can amplify those messages, as well as being a really important thing in itself in terms of the opportunity for scrutiny. But that is with trailing things. It is one thing where there is a trail of a much bigger document or plan, and that has happened since time immemorial, certainly since the media became such a thing—we are talking decades, not weeks. Where there are big important Government documents, like Budgets, strategic defence reviews, NHS 10-year plans or Government announcements like those on tuition fees, the WASPI response or a response to a big independent review, they should come to the House first, and we are endeavouring to do that. With everyday announcements—some of which, with hindsight, can feel bigger than they were intended to be—we just have to make those judgments and get the balance right. I would expect the House to be informed, ideally through an oral statement, but that is not always possible, which is why written statements and other vehicles are available.

I think it has got some of that flexibility in it, but they are judgments for him. I talk to him all the time about how we approach Parliament and how we can do that, but we all need to recognise that, for example, even 15 years ago, Facebook was hardly invented. I have been an MP for nearly 15 years; you have been an MP for longer than that.

Oh, are you later than me?

It is not that long ago when I was elected in 2010, and we hardly even had Facebook. If a journalist was given an unauthorised leak of something as the Secretary of State was on their way over to the House, it would take that journalist 24 hours to get it published somewhere, or certainly 12 or 14 hours. They would have to wait for a newspaper to be printed the next day, or for a news bulletin or something like that to come on air. Nowadays, a senior journalist puts that on Twitter as breaking news and the whole House of Commons knows about it. It is just very different. Where there are those kinds of leaks and when things like that happen or people break embargoes, it is just very here and now in a way that it did not used to be. We do have to reflect the House’s expectations. It is not so much about the Ministerial Code but perhaps about the House’s expectations about that and how we manage that better, because those comms can go around colleagues very quickly. People can be very irritated about that, which I totally understand, but even 15 years ago, that would not have been the case.

I actually think the House’s expectations have changed the other way. It was not that long ago—the Clerks might remember it—that you gave two weeks’ notice of a statement. If something happened, you would give two weeks’ notice of that statement. That only changed in the late 1990s. The emergence of urgent questions is very recent. The House, 25 years ago, was not discussing topical issues of the day. It was discussing pre-planned business two or three weeks hence that might have been completely irrelevant by the time it considered it. I want the House of Commons Chamber to be the fulcrum of national debate and to be the place where topical issues and the things that are of concern that day and on other days are discussed in a relevant and timely manner. I actually think the expectations of the House have increased, and I would agree with that; MPs today want to discuss topical issues, and that is why we see so many people going in for statements and UQs. Statements used to last only an hour maximum. Urgent questions used to last a maximum of 45 minutes. Nowadays, both of those go well over that. The media landscape has changed, but I think the expectations of the House have changed, and that is as it should be. As I said, I know that is what you are looking at, but even if we change the Ministerial Code to delete the word “first”, would you still all be really annoyed that we were giving stuff to the to the media first? Yes, you would, so let us just be honest about that.

There are those big set-piece moments—those big White Papers, big new plans, defence reviews, Budgets and so on—which are taken as read. Then, on a daily or weekly basis, it can depend on other things that are happening at the time. It can depend on demands of the House as well. For example, the Foreign Office and the Foreign Secretary have given something like 35 oral statements—I have the numbers here, but I can’t find them. The Foreign Office team has made a huge number of oral statements to the House. Do not forget that in the last Parliament, the Foreign Secretary was in the House of Lords and we could not question him at all, even though the Procedure Committee produced a report on how the House could do that, which was ignored by the previous Government. I would say that there was quite an egregious disregard for these matters in the last Parliament. In this Parliament, the Foreign Secretary has been very forthcoming. A lot of the time, the oral statements made by him or his Ministers are not announcements, but important updates to the House. Nothing significant might have changed in the situation in the middle east, but the House wants the opportunity to debate it with the Foreign Secretary, so sometimes we might commission a statement and suggest that a Minister comes forward with an update that is not necessarily an announcement. Then there are trade-offs on the day. If we have an important piece of Government legislation in which there is huge interest in the House, we will have fewer statements. That means we might not be able to do all the oral statements on that day, and so on. It is important to say that we have had some big debates that have really been impacted by statements. Just recently, we had lots of colleagues wanting to speak on remaining stages of the Football Governance Bill, and a very short time limit was put on that, because we had three statements that day. Even in the Pride month debate—not a piece of Government legislation, but a general debate—the Speaker had to introduce a three-minute limit, because we had three statements that day. There was a two-minute limit in the VE Day and VJ Day debate—it was massively oversubscribed—because we had three statements that day. That is why we have scheduled another debate on VJ Day next week. These are trade-offs that we are having to make. Lots of disappointed colleagues who have given time and attention to writing speeches and want to make contributions in later business are inhibited because of the number of oral statements, so that is a big consideration.

The statement is still being made to the House. Announcements are not just made in oral statements. In written ministerial statements, in answers to parliamentary questions, either orally or in writing, and in coming to a Select Committee, you are making those announcements to the House. Just recently—I know this is of great interest to the House, because it is raised with me at business questions all the time—we had an announcement on maternity services and some of the scandals we have seen. The Secretary of State was really keen to come to the House to give the update, but we had loads on that week and we also had lots of other business—Opposition business and things like that—so unfortunately we just could not get that in, which was a real shame. He did a WMS on that and hopefully there will be other opportunities for colleagues to raise it. Obviously, he has oral questions, and we knew the announcement of the 10-year plan was coming up, so people could raise those issues then. We do have to take these things into account, even when it can be quite disappointing because, as I and others know, these subjects are really important to the House.

As I said, on the strategic defence review, both myself and the Secretary of State—he apologised to the House for this—probably could have been more explicit and narrower about who had access to a reading room beforehand, making that clearer for people. Maybe some of the media handling around that as well, and some of the timing issues. On the tuition fees announcement, someone leaked that to the media as the Secretary of State was on her way over here to make that announcement to the House. Sometimes it is the other way, for example with the WASPI statement. I had a lot of colleagues very unhappy that they did not have prior notice of what was coming, to have time to prepare questions and look into that further. It is a constant evolution of weighing that up. Sometimes there are issues that are very important to the House, which perhaps are not as important to the media. We do try to ensure, as a Government, one major announcement of the day. That would take precedent as an oral statement. Other things might be done as written ministerial statements. But I, and perhaps the Chief Whip, would say, “Actually, those are more important to the House,” for whatever reason. It is just weighing that up.

That is absolutely not a feeling that I have made known.

I am sorry if you have had that impression, because I am really happy to be here and to answer these things.

Not at all.

The 10-year plan, which was a 169-page document, I think, was published to the House first. It was not a press conference about the whole document itself; it was about plans for the NHS. I don’t not take your point. These are balances to get right, but the plan itself was published to the House. The statement was advertised to the House that morning, so colleagues had time to go to the Vote Office, get the full document, prepare, look at page 89 and find something in it that they did not like or wanted to ask about, and put those to the Secretary of State, whose oral statement lasted for about two hours. Every colleague got in on that. I understand what you are saying, completely. I really do not want to give anyone the impression that I do not want to be here. I am here for a good, long while, and I am happy to do that, because these are important matters to discuss and debate. I am just trying to make the point that these things are subjective to some degree. There are trade-offs. We are endeavouring to do that in a way that balances the needs of Members to have adequate time to study such documents, and therefore come in and ask of a statement, and for notice to be given of that statement to the House in advance, so that people can be aware and be around and all that kind of thing. That is versus the need to do media, trail things in the media and have media moments as well. Obviously, we could not have a joint occasion with the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State all appearing at the Dispatch Box simultaneously because that is not how we work.

We could have had that afterwards. That is something we constantly stress test and consider—the logistics of that. The reverse of that would be that parliamentary business is not as predictable. Let us say that that day, a press conference with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, at a hospital, near London, had been booked in at 2 o’clock, but two urgent questions had been granted, then we had business questions and a statement from the Secretary of State. Either he would miss the press conference altogether, or he would have asked Mr Speaker to curtail the statement.

Yes. There are logistical things to do. But what I want to be really clear about, what would have happened previously and was suggested—not by the Secretary of State—was that the Secretary of State would do that conference somewhere, while a junior Minister gave the statement in the House. Sometimes Mr Speaker will make such a suggestion to me. Personally, I want the Secretary of State in the House giving the statement. I think colleagues will want to interrogate the Secretary of State. That is the debate we had in covid: lockdown was announced to the media; the lifting of lockdown was announced to the media; and closing the borders of the country was announced to the media. All the time in covid, all that was announced to the media, and never to the House. The Speaker at that time got very cross about that and would suggest that a junior Minister come and simultaneously make those announcements to the House, and towards the end of covid, that started to happen, but it was not quite simultaneous. Personally, I would rather—this would be my judgment—the Secretary of State had two hours. He would not be under time pressure. He cannot judge when that will come in the day, but two hours on the Floor of the House answering for a 169-page document.

But a statement, you cannot. If there are urgent questions, they go first; and business questions can last for as long as it lasts. If two urgent questions were granted, that could have been two hours, and business questions is often an hour and a half, so that is three and a half hours. Then you would have the health statement, which was is hours, so you cannot judge. I would have to say to Mr Speaker, “Can you not grant any UQs? Can you curtail business questions, because I need the Secretary of State to leave the building by 1 o’clock to go off and do a press conference?” I can tell you now, he would be far more annoyed by that.

Which is why I protected time for the Opposition day.

No, because urgent questions are not in my gift. It is not for me to influence, or to suggest to the Speaker that he is under pressure to not grant an urgent question—because, I can tell you now, if I even suggested that, he would grant many more.

I think you have to use your words carefully, because convention is not quite the same thing. A convention would be the custom and practice that for many, many years, announcements would go to the media, with statements made to the House later in the day, or when the House is sitting—big announcements are made in recesses and many of them in conference recesses, and at other times. The balance of that would be a convention, which is a different thing from what you are talking about, which is the Ministerial Code. There is a balance to be struck so that colleagues have time to read full documents, which are published to the House first, and that document was published first on that occasion. Documents are published in time to allow colleagues to read through them, really consider the issues and then come to the Secretary of State, who will be there for two hours answering questions on them. I do not see that as a breach of the code—I just do not. I see that as being forthcoming to Parliament. Of course, we will have media and comms plans around that, which mean we can get our messages out to the wider public.

Ministers do not have their own interpretation. It is a collective agreement.

That document was published to the House first.

It was published to the House first, so we are now having a different conversation.

Yet again, I gently say that we are throwing up binary straw men. As I hope I have tried to explain over the last hour and a half, that is not how things actually work or what they are subject to. The Ministerial Code and the conduct of Ministers is a matter for the Prime Minister. However, the expectation of this House would always be that, whatever is in the Ministerial Code, senior Ministers would be forthcoming to this House and would be making available announcements of major policy to this House first. If we are not accepting the premise that publishing a document to the House first is it coming to the House first, it is hard to see where that conversation goes.

To the House?

Yes, for colleagues to read it. Absolutely.

No, I said that it was published to give colleagues time to read it. It is a big document and, as I say, you get the opposite if you have the Secretary of State on their feet and a document has just been passed around at that moment. I have been in the Chamber many times over the years when that has happened. Obviously, there is a huge amount of disquiet about that because colleagues have not had time to read it and to come forward with their analysis, questions and what it means for their constituencies. It was published for colleagues in good time, and part of the code of practice is that statements are issued in advance.

As I said, I do not know why, but the tradition with the SDR is that, like the Budget, it is actually published when the Minister sits down. Obviously, the Secretary of State felt that was not adequate for the House and that is why he authorised it to be distributed in advance.

Yes, absolutely. And now, he has developed a new process, for future SDRs, whereby they will be published in advance. I think big documents should be published to the House first, but not in such a way that colleagues have not got time to read them, digest them and come up with questions.

And by the way, if the Committee wants to recommend to the Government that they change the code, that is obviously entirely a matter for the Committee.

The guidance—the guide to Parliament that is produced by my office and goes to Ministers—is that statements being given should be given to the Opposition spokespeople, for example. This is not a document, but a statement of any given kind. It should be given to the Opposition spokespeople and the Speaker at least 45 minutes before the Minister is on their feet. Again, the House has devices at its disposal when that is not the case. I don’t know whether you remember it happening in this Session, but it has happened a couple of times in this Session and in the past that the Speaker has suspended the House to give people time to read something because it was not given to them in time. Obviously, we also take a dim view of that when it happens and Ministers get a ticking-off. Your point is a really valid one about big important policy documents and getting the judgment right between giving Members ample time to read and digest them and the fact that obviously, once something is published to the House, it is effectively published. Anyone—a journalist with a Lobby pass—could pick it up from the Vote Office as well, and then we would have the other problem, which is, “You have published it before you have said it on the Floor of the House.” And now, in the age of social media, all its contents would be out on social media; there would be that kind of thing as well. So it is a question of getting that balance right. You are not alone, in that I get colleagues saying to me, “I would have liked a bit more time to consider that document before the statement.”

I always think that one of the hardest jobs in Parliament is for the Leader of the Opposition to respond to the Budget. It is effectively an announcement to the House first and a statement, because there nearly always is some big thing; rabbits out of the hat are what people call them. The Red Book and all the detail, which has been published the day before or something by whoever it gets printed by, is not actually made available in the Vote Office until the Chancellor sits down. The job of scrutinising the Budget is incredibly hard, because you have not got all the information in front of you. That is an example of the fact that we make the announcement to the House first, but is it in the interests of the House to do it in that way?

These are trade-offs, as we have been saying. There is perhaps a difference to some degree between everyday announcements, news management and amplifying your message, and big important Government documents and big important announcements. Personally I think the House of Commons is a much tougher crowd than a media press conference. Especially if someone has got something a bit off, or they have not got the detail, they have not got the answer, that gets exposed very quickly indeed in the House of Commons, because colleagues then come in off each other and ask supplementary questions. Often, in press conferences, each member of the media wants to ask the same question, because they need to show it on their own bulletins; they don’t want to show another person’s question. That is just my own view. Yes, these are trade-offs and we are coming up to a summer recess. On the idea that the Government of the day are not going to say anything for the length of a six-week recess is obviously not, we have to ensure that we find ways to do that in other ways. There won’t be big Government documents published over recess—I can assure you of that—but of course there will be a news grid over the recess and there will be announcements and so on. Then we will have the conference recesses, where Governments of the day make big announcements at conference, and the House isn’t sitting.

It’s not my document.

It’s not for me; it’s for the Prime Minister to decide if he wants to reopen the Ministerial Code. You generally do updates to the Ministerial Code once a Parliament—either once at the beginning of a Parliament or when a new Prime Minister is coming in and they have their own particular views about that. We did update aspects of the Ministerial Code at the start of this Parliament. I have given you a few examples of that in terms of expectations around standards, around gifts and hospitality, around outside interests—not just transparency but what it is appropriate to accept or not accept—and about meetings: a range of things were changed at that point in the Ministerial Code. It is not for me to say; it doesn’t get updated all that often, but that would be a matter for the Prime Minister to consider. I still don’t think that custom and practice and the expectations of the House and Members of the House and the Speaker would be all that different, were this not even to be in the Ministerial Code. I still think the expectations of the House would be that Ministers would be forthcoming and would be here, making important announcements to the House. That is respectful.

The resolution of the House is a broader—I don’t know whether you have seen paragraph 11.40, but it is worth having a look at the resolution of the House which makes clear about truthfulness, correcting the record, misleading Parliament and so on, disclosure of information and being forthcoming. It is not the same wording as the Ministerial Code, but it is respect for the House of Commons and respect for Parliament, and coming forward with things and being forthcoming and being held to account by Parliament is what Ministers are expected to do. They are expected to do that by the Prime Minister—the current Prime Minister and previous Prime Ministers—but actually they are very much expected to do that by the House. That is as it should be.

The resolution of the House isn’t—

Not that section of “Erskine May”.

As I say, these are expectations, in any case. As I say, there is no need to get into a semantic argument about it. And we are making judgments about how that is done, when it is done, and about what is “the most important”, what is “first”, and what is “in session”. These are all things that we are having to consider.

I’ve never been accused of being pure, Chair.

I need to get in for PMQs.

It is, but I can’t be late!