This is just hyperbole, by all concerned, parliamentarians and newspapers.
The simple truth is that the House of Commons has made a point for several centuries that its order of business is not prescribed by the Crown or by Ministers of the Crown. This is what the ritual of debating some odd Bills before debating the Queen's Speech at the opening of Parliament is all about.
There has been an uneasy relationship, and a tension over the matter of Government business, for a lot of that time. The simple truth is that this is neither a revolution nor an innovation. Standing orders have varied a lot over the decades and centuries, and there have regularly been reports commissioned on Parliamentary reform that have considered the matter.
Consider a few points:
- On 1868-04-30, Gladstone, in opposition at the time, served notice that he was going to ask for a suspension of standing orders so that the Government could not set a low priority for his resolution on Irish disestablishment, which was eventually to result in the Irish Church Act 1869. In the end, the Disraeli government conceded, giving time to the measure. (Alpheus Todd (1869). On Parliamentary Government in England. Volume 2. Longmans, Green and Company. p. 323)
- At the time, Government business only got priority on Monday, Thursday, and Friday; Wednesday being set aside for private Members' bills, and Tuesday being mainly debates on Notices.(op cit. p. 322)
- This had actually been Commons practice for several decades by that point, and the Standing Order in force at the time, that remained in force until pretty much the end of the century, had been resolved on 1861-05-03, reading:
That unless the House shall otherwise direct: […] the right being reserved to her Majesty's ministers of placing government orders at the head of the [orders of the day] list on every order day [i.e. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday], except Wednesday.
This order was a revision of earlier orders, resulting from a Select Committee On The Business Of The House report of April 1861. There had been previous select committees in 1837, 1848, and 1854. (James Graham (1861-04-15). "Draft Report by the Chairman to the Select Committee On The Business Of The House". Reports from Committees. House of Commons.)
- In 1854, the House of Commons resolved that from April 1854 to June 1854, Goverment orders not be given priority over other orders of the day, on every alternate Thursday. (Resolutions of the House. Journals of the House of Commons. Volumes 108–120. p. 911) Removing priority from Government business is clearly not an innovation, by well over a century and a half, and well before Gladstone gave his notice.
- It is widely acknowledged that by the turn of the 20th century the balance had shifted in favour of the executive, with priority being given to Government business most of the time by then. (Similar processes had happened in the Parliaments of Canada and New Zealand, incidentally.)
- It was World War Two that gave us the present situation where government business had precedence pretty much all of the time, though. The time for Private Members Bills on Wednesdays and Fridays (and some Tuesdays before Easter) was abolished in 1939, never to really return post-war.
- Some of the attempts to balance this out included, ironically, the Government putting Private Members Bills to the head of the order list. This caused controversy when it was done for the Divorce Reform Bill on 1969-06-12, but also caused attention to be drawn to the fact that roughly five times per year, for the preceding two decades, the Government had used its right to bring Bills to the top of the order list to prioritize things that were not in fact Government Bills.(Philip Norton (1975). Dissension in the House of Commons: Intra-Party Dissent in the House of Commons’ Division Lobbies 1945–1974. Macmillan International Higher Education. ISBN 9781349025596. p.356)
- There were several more reports on procedure during the 20th and 21st centuries that attempted to address this. The 2010 reform that you mention was the result of one that actually managed to gain some traction. The problem, also widely acknowledged, was in part that the people in charge of reviewing Commons procedure were also Government ministers, and "reform" was generally read as "make it easier for the Government and for Government business".
It's simply untrue that this is innovative, revolutionary, or unprecedented in history. The idea of changing or suspending Standing Orders goes back a long way, and they have been changed around, a lot. As does the idea of pushing for such changes in times of great debate, as was the case for Irish disestablishment, or escaping the restrictions of Standing Orders, as happened with Divorce Reform. As even, indeed, does the idea of not giving precedence to Government business on a Wednesday.
Further reading
- Michael Hunt (1987). "Parliament and official secrecy". In Richard A. Chapman and Michael Hunt: Open Government: A study of the prospects of open government within the limitations of the British political system. Routledge. ISBN 9781136451799.
- Simon Patrick (2017). "A History of the Standing Orders". In Paul Evans: Essays on the History of Parliamentary Procedure: In Honour of Thomas Erskine May. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781509900220.
