On Wednesday the deputy prime minister published a bill on House of Lords reform. We welcome the legislation. I have always voted for an elected second chamber and I look forward to doing so again – this time with Conservative backbenchers joining us in the division lobby.

When the last Labour government took through legislation to remove hereditary peers it was a simple six clause bill and there were nine days of debate.

So I asked in the chamber on Thursday why the government is planning to offer little more debate on this House of Lords bill given it is a much bigger, and more complex, piece of legislation.

I pointed out that the leader of the House is fond of saying this place isn’t a legislative factory and as the Queen’s speech was short of bills time isn’t a problem.

I asked him to undertake to arrange future government business to ensure members have sufficient time to scrutinise this bill.

Meanwhile, we have known for months that he is out of touch with the country. But what we didn’t realise was the extent to which he is out of touch with his own ministerial colleagues.

The transport secretary has spent weeks telling everyone the increase in fuel duty announced in the budget was going ahead.

Even on Tuesday morning, on the airways, she was absolutely clear, it would not be postponed.

And later that day at 12.30pm Conservative whips sent a briefing to all Tory MPs saying freezing fuel duty would be: ‘Hypocrisy of the worse kind’.

But just two hours later the chancellor pops up at the dispatch box to announce he will after all be freezing fuel duty humiliating the transport secretary in the process.

The chancellor then forced the economic secretary to make her now celebrated Newsnight appearance to explain the latest budget U-turn on the grounds: ‘there isn’t much in the world that is certain’.

Given the disarray and panic in the Treasury bunker I suggested at business questions that the leader of the House might struggle to give an exact figure on the exact number of government U-turns to date.

I said that the chancellor should write the next budget in pencil so we can rub it all out again when he changes his mind!

Meanwhile, the leader of the House announced two days of debate on the finance bill next week.

I asked if he would now put his reputation on the line and tell us categorically that there will be no more U-turns on the bungling budget or perhaps he should just give up and vote for our amendments next week.

The government has made all the wrong choices on the economy.

A double-dip recession made in Downing Street: borrowing is up, tax receipts down, living standards worsening, and there is still no plan for growth.

The U-turn the chancellor really needs to make is on his failed economic strategy.

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Angela Eagle is MP for Wallasey, shadow leader of the Commons and writes the weekly Business of Parliament column for Progress. She tweets @AngelaEagle