They have finally gone away. The prime minister tried to get rid of parliament a few days early, but couldn’t muster the votes. There was so much bad news to bury, it would have been easier to scuttle off sooner: nothing is good news for her these days, so scores of written ministerial statements slipped out in the last couple of days, in the hope that no one would notice.

It’s a tradition – a bad one – used by all governments called “take out the trash day”, the last day of the session, with no time for MPs to summon ministers to explain highly controversial decisions. They hope to duck under the radar, or that the opposition will forget in the long six-week break.

On the final day, no fewer than 21 separate ministerial statements emerged, plus stacks of reports with embarrassing statistics. Another 18 statements had appeared in the days before, on a welter of subjects with opaque titles such as “home office update”, “schools update”, “teachers update”, “Department of Health update”, “housing policy” and more.

Traditionally, the dreariest titles hide the most controversial news, such as the innocuous-sounding “machinery of government” announcement: that’s the one that stripped Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, of his negotiating role and transferred it to Olly Robbins at the Cabinet Office’s Europe unit. The timing misfired: it hit the decks just as the two of them were up before the Brexit committee, sitting awkwardly together.

The guess has to be that if it was good news, it would not have been sneaked out

Here are a few they hoped to skip past MPs: just after loud RAF centenary celebrations, BBC programmes with heroes recalled and a fly-past bringing central London to a standstill, out slipped a written statement saying both RAF Linton-on-Ouse and RAF Scampton were to be closed. RAF Scampton, home of the Red Arrows, is home to the RAF Heritage Centre. The Ministry of Defence was not eager to draw attention to another last-day report revealing a doubling of personnel seeking mental health support in the past decade, with long waits for treatment for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The transport minister, Chris Grayling, snuck out a report that is no news to rail users: crush-hour overcrowding is worsening with too few carriages, some carrying two-and-a-half times more people than designed for.

Seven more courts are to shut, from Banbury to Fleetwood, whispered the justice secretary, David Gauke. Losing courts leaves great holes in communities, breaking the connection between justice and locality, forcing many to travel miles, with long court delays. Interesting note: the only one reprieved was Cambridge (a marginal seat), where the consultation yielded the most vociferous protests, something the city is good at.

A radical change to planning laws was smuggled out by the Department for Communities. Councils lose the right to block developments if they have failed to build their fair quota of affordable housing. Unscrutinised, who knows if this will be a gift for developers to build greenfield identikit executive homes wherever they want, however unaffordable? The local government association’s Tory chair says it “punishes local communities”. The guess has to be that if it was good news, it would not have been sneaked out.

Fracking got the green light, with shale company Cuadrilla permitted to drill in Lancashire, despite vigorous local protests. And Scotland will be shocked at the slippery way the MoD announced a stop to the contract for five Type 31e frigates to be built at Rosyth and on the Clyde, risking local jobs. This was once a sweetener to keep Scotland in the union: the Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, used it in her 2016 Holyrood election campaign, promising the order would definitely go to the Clyde. Not any more, because the MoD wanted them to be too cheap for anyone to be able build them.

Other last-minute statements were made on sex education, immigration, defence spending, the Grenfell Tower disaster and police conduct. These will take time to mull over. So will all the things not there but promised for “before the summer recess” – above all, no social care policy.

One item came as an intended end-of-term good news fanfare – the pay rise for public servants, with some due for 3.5%. But it quickly blew up when the true figures showed pay was still not rising above inflation for most police, teachers, members of the armed forces, doctors, dentists and others. Real wages in the public sector are still lower than they were in 2010. Worse still, it emerges that the Treasury won its austerity battle: it will contribute not one penny. All the money will likely be found from departmental budgets. Imagine the hellish summer holiday for civil servants who have to choose which programmes to salami slice next: in education, for example, it is the funds aimed at improving teaching and leadership, and for general school improvement, that are thought to be most at risk.

All these decisions will mightily affect many people’s lives and livelihoods – and under scrutiny, more details will emerge. This underhanded skulduggery is a reminder of the value of a parliament holding the executive to account. As a way to conduct government, it is a disgrace: take no garbage from any minister promising “transparency” when this take-out-the-trash deviousness has become an end-of-term ritual.

• Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist