Michael Gove has been savaged by Lindsay Hoyle for failing to give MPs a copy of a statement he made on the decision to open the UK’s first new coal mine in 30 years.
The Commons speaker told the levelling up secretary he had broken the ministerial code and added: “This is not the way we do good government.”
Hoyle then suspended the sitting of parliament while the issue was sorted out.
The extraordinary clash came after Gove finished explaining why he had granted planning permission to the new mine in Whitehaven, Cumbria.
Holding up a piece of paper, Hoyle told him: “I’ve got the thinnest statement ever and quite rightly the minister has gone long, so there’s something missing between what I’ve been provided, the opposition have been provided.
“That is not according to the ministerial code. We don’t act like that, the shadow secretary has not been able to read what’s been said.
″I’m going to suspend the house for five minutes in order to try and find out what is in what’s just been told to the house.”
Hoyle later announced that he was suspending the house until 11.30 “in order to try and get the transcript of what’s been said in the statement”.
He added: “Sorry about this, this is not the way we do good Government, thank you.”
Commons sources told HuffPost UK that Gove was given “a bollocking” outside the debating chamber.
“Gove said it wasn’t a ministerial code breach but clerks told him in no uncertain terms that it is,” a source said.
“Hoyle told Gove to photocopy what he’s read so that that could be handed out to other MPs – but Gove said that wasn’t possible because he’d only prepared a two minute speech and so had just ad libbed what he ended up saying. Hoyle was livid and so delayed things further.”
A Labour source said: “They often look like they’re making it up as they go along, but I didn’t realise that that’s literally what they do. What a complete and utter shambles.”
Gove’s office has been contacted for comment.