Sir Lindsay Hoyle

Order. I thank the Minister who has been sent here, for coming to the House. Once again I must remind Ministers of the requirement in the Government’s own ministerial code that major announcements should be made in the House in the first instance, not in the media. I understand that media announcements must be managed carefully as long as the expectations remain as they are in the ministerial code. That is the problem. It is the ministerial code that is being broken. I will continue to uphold the rights of this House and its Members to be treated with respect and to be first to hear any major announcements. Unfortunately, last week, when I also had to criticise Ministers, some of them decided to make comments about “having a bugle”. The point is, those Ministers ought to learn the facts of the ministerial code before they make comments in the media.