On Monday, the Chancellor will make a statement to MPs presenting the results of her ‘audit’ of the public finances, and reportedly announcing the date of her first Budget and Spending Review. Will this be the end of Labour’s honeymoon phase?

This week marks the first legislative debates stemming from the King’s Speech. MPs will engage in Second Reading debate on legislation to bring the railways into public ownership and to require the Office for Budget Responsibility to assess all ‘fiscally significant’ announcements. What stance will the Conservatives take in providing opposition to these proposals?

Peers will debate a former Private Member’s Bill, now adopted by the Government, to treat two well-known bodies working in the international sphere as if they were international government organisations. They will also consider the Arbitration Bill, a tidying-up measure that was lost in the legislative ‘wash-up’ when Parliament dissolved for the general election.

The Summer Adjournment Debate – named in affectionate memory of the murdered Conservative MP Sir David Amess – is traditionally held on the final day before the Summer recess and is an opportunity for MPs to speak on almost any topic they choose. But it has been postponed until mid-September, to make way for debates on Government legislation.

As noted last week, the new Government Whips and Parliamentary Private Secretaries play a significant role in orchestrating events in the Chamber, suggesting questions to MPs that Ministers might like to be asked. Another series of identical questions have been tabled for the two departmental Question Times this week.

Will we know which party will chair which Select Committee before the recess? An important deadline for the allocation of Select Committee chairs between the parties falls this week. However, it remains uncertain whether the motion to allocate the chairs will then be tabled and voted on.

The last sitting day before the Summer recess traditionally sees the Government release a flurry of consultation decisions, statements, and reports, often accompanied by Written Statements to Parliament. This day is sometimes called ‘take out the trash day’ or a ‘good day to bury bad news’ because the Statements are published too late for MPs to scrutinise or question ministers until they return in September.

Questions and statements: At 14:30, the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, and other Home Office Ministers will face questions from MPs. Of the 25 questions on the Order Paper, at least 10 appear to be planted ‘hand-out’ questions, which are often given to MPs by the Whips or ministerial Parliamentary Private Secretaries (PPSs). Identically worded questions submitted by Labour MPs include:

• five on “what steps her Department is taking to tackle antisocial behaviour”; and

• five on “what steps her Department plans to take to tackle violence against women and girls”.

Only one of the 25 questions is from a Conservative MP. The other 24 questions have been tabled by three Liberal Democrat MPs, one Green Party MP, one Reform UK MP, and 19 Labour MPs. It could be that the Conservatives have just had bad luck in the ballot for Oral Questions, or few among them are submitting questions, distracted as they are from parliamentary business by their own internal leadership challenges. Conservative MPs will still be able to participate, however, as the Speaker will usually call MPs who wish to ask supplementary questions after each question on the Order Paper. But the first MP to be called will be former Conservative, now Reform MP, Lee Andersen who will ask what steps the Home Secretary is taking “to tackle illegal crossings of the Channel in small boats.”

Any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow. But the key event will be a statement from the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, presenting the results of an ‘audit’ of the public finances. Press reports suggest she may also announce the date of her first Budget and Spending Review in the Autumn.

The Hansard Society’s ‘Back to Business’ guide highlights that after the change of Government in 1979, 1997 and 2010 a Budget was held between 39 and 61 days after polling day. Scheduling a Budget after the party conference recess in October would result in the first Budget of this new Parliament being significantly later than these precedents.

Written Statements: Fourteen are listed for publication today including updates on the civil service, armed forces, teachers, the NHS and NHS workforce, police and prison workforce and the judiciary. All are areas where there are major issues in relation to pay awards and/or much needed investment in capital projects: will these statements contain new announcements linked to the Chancellor’s own statement?

Look out also for a Home Office statement on the UK’s response to the implementation of the European Entry/Exit System which it is feared will lead to further border delays this Autumn, a statement from the Foreign Secretary on “0.7 per cent of GNI on ODA target 2023” and from the Northern Ireland Secretary on what is going to be done with the controversial “Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy & Reconciliation) Act 2023”.

Main business: The main business will be Second Reading of the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill, to bring train operations into public ownership after current franchise contracts end. This will be the first debate on primary legislation of the new Parliament. Second Reading is the first opportunity for MPs to debate the broad principles of the Bill. While an opposition party may table a ‘reasoned’ amendment objecting to the Bill on matters of principle, the detailed text will not be amended until the next stage, when the Bill goes into Committee.

Adjournment: Conservative MP and former chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Alicia Kearns, has the adjournment debate on road safety on the A1.

House of Lords: The main business will be Second Reading of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross (Status) Bill. This legislation aims to treat the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in a manner comparable to an international organisation of which the UK is a member, rather than as a UK-registered charity. This Bill was first introduced as a Private Member’s Bill (PMB) in the form of a ‘Presentation Bill’ in the last Session by Dame Maria Miller, but it was lost during the legislative wash-up before the general election.

The Bill has cross-party support and has now been adopted as a Government Bill. It completed its House of Commons scrutiny stages in the last Parliament as a PMB but will have to do so again once the House of Lords have finished with it, in its new incarnation.

Peers will also debate motions to approve two Statutory Instruments which have already been approved by the House of Commons: the Global Combat Air Programme International Government Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 2024, and the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Requisite and Minimum Custodial Periods) Order 2024. The latter implements the Government’s policy of releasing fixed-term prisoners on licence after serving 40%, rather than 50%, of their sentence, as discussed in a recent Hansard Society blog post on the use of delegated legislation to deal with prison overcrowding.

An oral question tabled by Lord Scriven particularly takes the eye: he will ask the Housing, Communities and Local Government minister whether the Government plans to request a National Audit Office inspection of the controversial Teeswork programme in the North-East of England which falls in the patch of the sole Conservative Metro-Mayor, Ben Houchen, who is also a member of the House of Lords.

Updated on 29 July to include the statement being made by Angela Rayner on planning.

Select Committee chairs: We may learn on Tuesday which parties will chair which Select Committees. House of Commons Standing Orders define the process for electing Select Committee chairs, which are proportionately distributed between the parties to reflect the number of seats each party won at the general election. The Speaker will have informed party leaders of the number of select committee chairs to which they are entitled the day after his election (10 July). The parties then negotiate – via the ‘Usual Channels’ (the party business managers) – the allocation of each Select Committee.

Within two weeks of the King’s Speech, party leaders entitled to a chair (likely to be only Labour, the Conservatives, and the Liberal Democrats) must table a motion specifying the chair allocations. This deadline falls on Wednesday. If they fail to do so, the Standing Order provides that on the following sitting day (which will be after the Summer recess) the Speaker will give precedence to a motion tabled by any Member of the House.

If the motion from the three parties is tabled this week, it may not be voted on until after the Summer recess. Standing Orders stipulate that the election of Select Committee chairs shall take place exactly two weeks after an allocation motion is approved. Approval this week would set the election date during the Summer recess. However, the Speaker can amend the two-week period between the approval and the election, but not the two-week deadline for tabling the motion.

Questions and statements: At 11:30, the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, and other Foreign Office Ministers will face questions from MPs. Again, another eight out of the 25 questions on the Order Paper appear to be hand-out questions. The identically worded questions submitted by Labour MPs include:

• six on “what steps he is taking to help improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza”; and

• two on “what steps he is taking to support Ukraine”.

Any Urgent Questions or Ministerial Statements will follow. The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner, is expected to make a statement to Parliament announcing changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which sets out the Government's planning policies for England. The new NPPF is expected to reinstate the mandatory housing targets abolished last December and to change the rules to enable building on poorer-quality green belt land described as 'grey belt'.

No Written Statements have yet been confirmed for today but it’s the last sitting day before the Summer recess so we expect quite a few to emerge before the House rises.

Main business: Second Reading of the Budget Responsibility Bill, requiring independent assessments by the Office for Budget Responsibility for all ‘fiscally significant’ measures. The Speaker is expected to certify the Bill as a Money Bill, engaging the provisions of the 1911 Parliament Act. As such, if the Bill is not then passed by the House of Lords within a month of it being received, it can be sent for Royal Assent without the Lords’ approval.

Petitions: The Conservative MP for South Holland and the Deepings, Sir John Hayes, will present a petition relating to the Mill Field Housing Development proposal in Market Deeping in his constituency.

Adjournment: Sir John Hayes also has the adjournment debate on the topic of food security.

At the close of business, the House will rise for the Summer recess and will return on Monday 2 September.

In recent years the practice has been that before the House rises for Summer, a special adjournment debate is held as the final item of business. This was recently re-named the ‘Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment Debate’ in memory of the Conservative MP murdered in his constituency in 2021 who was a frequent participant. In the debate MPs can make speeches about whatever topic they choose. However, the motion for the debate has not been included in the House of Commons business papers, and media reports suggest that Labour are delaying it until to the end of the pre-conference sitting in September in order that the time this week can be devoted to consideration of legislation arising from the King’s Speech.

House of Lords: Two bills will have their Second Reading debates in the Upper House.

First to be considered is the Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill, which seeks to enhance the UK’s regime for handling bank failures (or ‘resolution’ regime), following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the subsequent failure of its UK subsidiary. The Bill would allow the Bank of England to recover the costs of recapitalising failing small banks using a levy on the banking sector. A consultation on the proposal was held in January 2024, with the Labour Government making one change to that proposal by excluding credit unions from the levy.

The second is the Arbitration Bill which also has its roots in the last Parliament. The Bill gives effect to recommendations by the Law Commission to reform the arbitration procedures in the 1996 Arbitration Act. The Bill was introduced into the House of Lords in the last Session but did not survive the legislative ‘wash-up’ prior to dissolution of Parliament for the general election.

Lord Foulkes has an oral question to the Leader of the House of Lords about whether the Government plans to review the arrangements for nominations for appointment to the Upper House. The King’s Speech laid out plans to remove the right of some members – notably the remaining hereditary Peers – to sit and vote in the House. But just as important are measures to regulate the number of new Peers that are created each year, an issue on which the Government has been less vocal and clear.

But look out also for Lord Rooker’s question about a potential national health emergency arising from dangerously low levels of blood stocks which last week prompted the NHS Blood and Transplant Service to issue a national blood donation alert.

The House will rise at the conclusion of business on Tuesday (30 July) for the Summer recess, returning on Monday 2 September. The House will then rise for conference recess on Thursday 12 September and return on Monday 7 October.