MPs on the Commons treasury committee have called on HM Treasury and parliamentary business managers to ensure that MPs have more time to consider the Finance Bill than they had in 2012, when the committee described timings set by government as ‘highly unsatisfactory’.
Future Budgets and Finance Bills should allow MPs more time between publication of the Bill and second reading ‘and, particularly, between second reading and committee of the whole house’, the treasury committee said in a report published today.
‘This may require the Budget to be somewhat earlier in future,’ it said. ‘We believe this to be an important issue of principle going to the heart of Treasury ministers' accountability to parliament.’
The chancellor will deliver the Budget on Wednesday 20 March. The Commons will rise for the Easter recess on Tuesday, 26 March and will return on Monday, 15 April.
These timings are ‘similar to last year’, the committee said, noting that it will need to hear oral evidence on the Budget ‘rapidly’ before the recess.
‘The timing of the Budget in 2013 is equivalent to that in 2012. Bearing in mind the vague response of the government to the serious concerns we raised in 2012, there remains the risk that the government might schedule the second reading of the Finance Bill, and perhaps also the committee of the whole house stage, for the week of 15 April 2013. This would be wholly unacceptable and would fail to give the House the time to consider the Bill and the conclusions of the treasury committee.’
Since December 2010 the government has published most of the annual Finance Bill measures in draft and has allowed two months for technical consultation.
A public bill committee considered the Finance Bill 2012 measures in 18 sittings on nine days between April and June 2012.
Autumn statement
The committee recognised that an autumn statement is ‘useful to appraise the effectiveness (or otherwise) of measures announced in the spring Budget, and the general state of public finances and the wider economy’.
However, it warned that the statement had taken on the role of being a ‘second, full, Budget’, so that business and the economy ‘needs to react to two periods, not one, of potential uncertainty and change’.
It said a return to a position of one Budget in the spring, and an ‘updating statement’ in the autumn, would be desirable.
MPs on the Commons treasury committee have called on HM Treasury and parliamentary business managers to ensure that MPs have more time to consider the Finance Bill than they had in 2012, when the committee described timings set by government as ‘highly unsatisfactory’.
Future Budgets and Finance Bills should allow MPs more time between publication of the Bill and second reading ‘and, particularly, between second reading and committee of the whole house’, the treasury committee said in a report published today.
‘This may require the Budget to be somewhat earlier in future,’ it said. ‘We believe this to be an important issue of principle going to the heart of Treasury ministers' accountability to parliament.’
The chancellor will deliver the Budget on Wednesday 20 March. The Commons will rise for the Easter recess on Tuesday, 26 March and will return on Monday, 15 April.
These timings are ‘similar to last year’, the committee said, noting that it will need to hear oral evidence on the Budget ‘rapidly’ before the recess.
‘The timing of the Budget in 2013 is equivalent to that in 2012. Bearing in mind the vague response of the government to the serious concerns we raised in 2012, there remains the risk that the government might schedule the second reading of the Finance Bill, and perhaps also the committee of the whole house stage, for the week of 15 April 2013. This would be wholly unacceptable and would fail to give the House the time to consider the Bill and the conclusions of the treasury committee.’
Since December 2010 the government has published most of the annual Finance Bill measures in draft and has allowed two months for technical consultation.
A public bill committee considered the Finance Bill 2012 measures in 18 sittings on nine days between April and June 2012.
Autumn statement
The committee recognised that an autumn statement is ‘useful to appraise the effectiveness (or otherwise) of measures announced in the spring Budget, and the general state of public finances and the wider economy’.
However, it warned that the statement had taken on the role of being a ‘second, full, Budget’, so that business and the economy ‘needs to react to two periods, not one, of potential uncertainty and change’.
It said a return to a position of one Budget in the spring, and an ‘updating statement’ in the autumn, would be desirable.
