Prime Minister Theresa May and Chancellor Philip Hammond visit an engineering facility in the West Midlands during Budget week (Picture: PA)

Theresa May has been accused of ‘rigging Parliament’ by moving to block MPs from altering Budget legislation.

The Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury has blasted the Prime Minister for ‘desperately clinging to power and hiding from scrutiny’.

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Labour’s Peter Dowd, said: ‘Once again we have further evidence of the government’s unprecedented rigging of parliament because they cannot rely on their backbenchers or the DUP.

‘This comes in the wake of the Tories stitch up of standing committees and its undemocratic and arrogant decision to ignore opposition motions.


‘This is a government desperately clinging to power and hiding from scrutiny.’

Prime Minister Theresa May and Chancellor Philip Hammond visit an engineering training facility in the West Midlands (Picture: PA)

The Government have utilised an uncommon procedural device to eradicate efforts to amend the Finance Bill following last week’s 2017 Budget.

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The ‘power grab’ ensures MPs have little ability to alternatives to Philip Hammond’s tax measures and blocks backbench rebels from joining Labour or alternative opposition parties to pressure the Government on specific issues.



Following a Budget, it is custom for ministers to table a number of Commons, which are agreed by MPs in the following days.

Blocking Opposition amendments is a tactic usually reserved for emergency scenarios and has only been used a few times in the last century, in 1929, 1974, 1997 and 2010.

It’s believed the move has blocked potential VAT amendments for the ‘luxury’ levy on sanitary products such as tampons.

The Treasury said the tactic was simply a ‘practical modernisation’.

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