Priti Patel’s no-show is a sign of a government in suspended animation

Rather like being a prime minister, being a home secretary is a binary matter – you either are in the job with all the powers and obligations it entails or you are not.

So it is odd that Priti Patel chose at the last moment to duck out of one of her most important obligations, the duty of accountability via the home affairs select committee.

Ms Patel pleads: “The committee will be aware of the recent changes in government, and in particular to the ministerial team in my department … Regrettably, as a result of this and the wider unprecedented changes since I agreed to give evidence, I will no longer be able to meet with the committee. I would however like to ensure that the session goes ahead at the next appropriate point, and suggest that we postpone until a mutually agreed date in September.”

The chair of the committee, Diana Johnson, called the refusal to attend the evidence session “wholly unacceptable”.

It is obviously true that there is instability in the government, future policy is uncertain, and the security and borders minister in the Home Office, Damian Hinds, has quit. On the other hand, Patel has been in office since 2019, and she and her officials are well able to answer MPs’ questions. It’s also fair to say that Patel has some urgent questions to answer about the Rwanda refugee deportation plan, migration across the English Channel, the state of police forces in London, Manchester and elsewhere, and the Ukrainian and Afghan resettlement schemes.

Nor is the Home Office alone in placing itself into a state of suspended animation until September, when the leadership question is supposed to be resolved, if only for now. This week, for example, the government’s latest economic plan was due to be published, and presumably enacted, with the aim of alleviating the cost of living crisis – another challenge best not postponed. That was delayed because the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, couldn’t agree on tax cuts with Boris Johnson, and then Sunak’s rushed successor, Nadhim Zahawi, who agreed with the prime minister, told the PM he should quit, launched his own leadership bid, and suggested lopping 20 per cent off departmental budgets.

Now that Zahawi’s radicalism has been rewarded with second-bottom place in the leadership poll he might not be chancellor for much longer anyway, threatening more stasis. Other ministries, such as education, have been stymied by mass resignations, and left with inadequate, unsuitable figures such as Andrea Jenkyns doing more harm than good.

“Caretaker” administrations normally last only as long as an election campaign, and in relatively calm circumstances. One of the unfortunate unintended consequences of both main parties enfranchising their party members is that such contests inevitably drag on. It rarely matters much in opposition, and in the end in 2007 (Blair to Brown) and 2016 (Cameron to May) the selection was truncated in any case. But in the age of Zoom and Microsoft Teams, it should be possible to resolve leadership contests within a month. Not for the first time, Westminster needs some modernisation.