Government scolded for pre-Budget speculationpublished at 12:38 GMT
Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent
Just before Reeves stood to speak, the deputy speaker, Nusrat Ghani, admonished the government at length for the level of speculation which has preceded this Budget.
She is suggesting quite strongly that Rachel Reeves and other cabinet ministers may have broken the ministerial code, the set of rules by which all ministers must abide.
But, apart from one passing reference, this was clearly prepared before the astonishing publication by the OBR of its document earlier today, so it does sit a little unusually in that context.
At the end of her speech, Ghani said that MPs would get copies of the Budget documents at the end of Reeves’s speech.
But she did not engage with the suggestion of Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, that they be distributed now given the OBR’s document has been available online for the best part of an hour.
Image source, UK Parliament
