Budget Day
The only times that the Budget Cabinet has raised objections causing last-minute amendment to the Budget have been:[1] The Chancellor's Speech in the House is given immediately after what is usually a somewhat lacklustre Prime Minister's Question Time, it being largely overshadowed by what is seen as the main parliamentary event of the day, now usually around 12:30 but previously about 15:30.
Nigel Lawson reports that after the press photo-call at 15:15, where like all chancellors he would hold the red dispatch box, purportedly containing the budget speech,N1 aloft; he used to spend time in his room, just behind the Speaker's chair, collecting his thoughts, before entering the house at 15:25, usually to the sound of "a roar from the Government benches".
Macmillan remarked that he "would try not to prolong the agony", and once opined of the speech that he did not think it "necessary to start with the usual long review of the events of the last financial year".
[7] The longest continuous budget speech was delivered by William Ewart Gladstone on 18 April 1853 and lasted 4 hours and 45 minutes.
[10] It is also a parliamentary tradition that whilst making the Budget Speech the Chancellor may drink whatever they wish, including alcohol which is otherwise forbidden.
Past chancellors have opted for whisky (Kenneth Clarke), gin and tonic (Geoffrey Howe), brandy and water (Benjamin Disraeli), spritzer (Nigel Lawson) and sherry and beaten egg (William Ewart Gladstone).
Young reports one Member of Parliament observing that Chancellors customarily "keep up their sleeves one or two million pounds which they propose to give away in concessions during the course of the Finance Bill debates".
Since Parliament has been televised, TV news services have broadcast the Chancellor's speech live, as a "Budget special".
[1][14] This tradition was discontinued, starting with the 2012 budget, as part of wider changes to the scheduling of party political broadcasts.
[15] The BBC defended its decision, saying that they originated from a time where filming the Budget Statement from inside the House of Commons was not possible, and the public would be able to access the information from various other outlets.
[171] In Ireland, Budget Day is the annual statement to the Dáil by the Minister for Finance, made in the first week of December.
The speech, which lasts approximately one hour, is normally carried live on Raidió Teilifís Éireann radio and television.
[175] Pranab Mukherjee, the first Rajya Sabha member to hold the Finance portfolio, presented the annual budgets for 1982–83, 1983–84 and 1984–85.
[175] Following a constitutional crisis when the I. K. Gujral Ministry was on its way out, a special session of Parliament was convened just to pass Chidambaram's 1997–98 budget.
[175] Until the year 2000, the Union Budget was announced at 5 pm on the last working day of the month of February.
This practice was inherited from the Colonial Era when the British Parliament would pass the budget in the noon followed by India in the evening of the day.
It was Mr.Yashwant Sinha, the then Finance Minister of India in the NDA government (led by BJP) of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who changed the ritual by announcing the 2001 Union Budget at 11 am.
[178] Until the year 2016, the Union Budget was presented in the Lok Sabha on the last working day of February.
It was Mr. Arun Jaitley, the Minister of Finance in the BJP led NDA Government under the Prime Ministership of Mr. Narendra Modi, who changed the date of the Annual Budget of 2017 to the first working day of February.
[180] Instead the legislation that establishes the federal government's budget originates in the Congress,[181] although the executive branch traditionally makes a proposal in advance.
