OBR chairman resigns after damning report into leak of Reeves’ Budget – latest

Richard Hughes, head of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), has recently resigned, so here’s what we know about him:

He led the OBR for five years after first joining HM Treasury in 2000.

The Harvard and Oxford-educated economist worked on a range of domestic and international macroeconomic issues during his time at the treasury, leading to the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review.

After a brief stint at the French Ministry of Finance in 2007, he joined the International Monetary Fund in 2008, where he headed the public finance section of the treasury department and worked on fiscal reform in a number of developed, emerging and developing countries.

Richard returned to HM Treasury as Director of Fiscal Policy between 2016 and 2019; where he oversaw the government’s fiscal strategy, debt management, and treasury operations and served as acting chief economist.

Treasury secretary James Murray thanked Richard Hughes “for his commitment to public service” after resigning as head of the Office for Budget Responsibility.

He continued: “I understand that events are progressing rapidly, I understand from the messages I received, there was an incident, the OBR chairman resigned, I understand this from the messages I received.”

His comment followed a question from Labor MP Laurence Turner, who asked whether Mr Murray agreed that the OBR chief could not “credibly lead” the investigative work.

Mr Turner’s comment was met with cries of “gone” from Conservative parties.

Reporting from The Independent’s political correspondent Millie Cooke.

Ahead of Mr Hughes’ resignation, a Downing Street spokesman refused to say whether the Prime Minister had confidence in the OBR chief, saying: “Clearly, the implications of this report are extremely serious and the consequences will now be fully considered.”

The Conservatives have warned the Government not to scapegoat the OBR over the Treasury’s handling of the Budget.

Conservative shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride told the House of Commons: “May I also seek urgent assurance that (Treasury secretary James Murray’s) concluding comment, which I quote, ‘we will respond to this matter with the seriousness it requires’, will not involve scapegoating the OBR to distract from serious questions about the handling of the Budget by the Chancellor, ministers, the Treasury and Number 10.”

Mr Stride also questioned the whereabouts of Chancellor Rachel Reeves and said her failure to appear before the House of Commons on Monday was “a matter of deep regret” to him.

“The Chancellor’s credibility is in tatters and disrespect for this House must be added to the long list of his failings on these matters,” he said.

Mr Murray said the Chancellor was at an investment summit in Wales and could not attend.

He added: “I wasn’t sure from the Shadow Chancellor’s comments at the beginning of his speech whether he, like us, values ​​the OBR’s role in the budget-setting process. We value its independence, its integrity, and that’s why we take what happened last Wednesday extremely seriously and we are determined to pursue it.”

Here is the full resignation letter from OBR chairman Richard Hughes as he stepped down following a major leak last week.

Dear Chancellor and Dame Meg,

I am writing to you following the publication of the investigation report regarding the November 2025 Economic and Financial Outlook publication error. The OBR plays a vital role in the UK’s fiscal policy-making process and it is critical that the Government, Parliament and the public continue to have confidence in its work. The mistakenly premature release of our economic and fiscal outlook on November 26 was a technical but serious mistake.

The OBR’s report to the Treasury and the House of Commons Treasury Committee sets out how and why the incident happened and sets out further actions the Office will take to ensure it never happens again. I am grateful to Baroness Sarah Hogg and Dame Susan Rice for overseeing the report, to Professor Ciaran Martin for providing expert input, and to the joint OBR-Treasury team for producing the report so quickly.

I am confident that by implementing the recommendations in this report, the OBR can quickly regain and restore the trust and respect it has earned through 15 years of rigorous, independent economic analysis.

But I must also do my part to ensure that the organization I have loved leading for the past five years recovers quickly from this sad event. I have therefore decided that it is in the OBR’s interests to resign as Chairman and take full responsibility for the shortcomings identified in the report.

I would like to thank my predecessor Robert Chote, my fellow Budget Responsibility Committee Members past and present David Miles, Tom Josephs, Charlie Bean and Andy King, Chief of Staff Laura Gardiner and all the staff at the OBR for being wonderful colleagues over the past five years. I will follow OBR’s progress with great interest and pride.

Richard Hughes, head of the Office for Budget Responsibility, said he resigned before Rachel Reeves’ speech to allow the watchdog to “quickly dispense with” the leak of the Budget.

Treasury secretary James Murray told the House of Commons that the government supports a “deeper judicial investigation” into previous statements by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

“I can confirm that the Treasury will be contacting previous chancellors to keep them updated on previous financial events,” Mr Murray said.

He later added: “The Government will work with the National Cyber ​​Security Center to take forward the recommendation for a forensic review of other financial events, but let me specifically note on behalf of the House that the report found no evidence of hostile cyber activity.

“In addition, the report states that they cannot conduct a deeper forensic examination of other Economic and Financial Outlook events at the current time, and we recommend that such a study be carried out urgently with expert support.

“We will ensure that the work is done urgently.”

James Murray told MPs he was “very concerned” to learn that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) error could have led to earlier forecasts being released prematurely.

Quoting the watchdog’s investigation, Mr Murray told the Commons: “It is very likely that the weaknesses that led to the early access of the ‘Economic and Financial Outlook 2025 (EFO)’ were pre-existing.

“’In fact, the March 2025 EFO appears to have been accessed prematurely.’”

Addressing the impact of the leak on markets, Treasury Secretary Mr Murray later added: “It is extremely concerning that market-sensitive information has been prematurely accessible to a small group of market participants.

“It is even more serious that this has occurred on more than one occasion. We do not know at this stage the extent to which market behavior may have been affected in this or other cases as a result of the early availability of information.”

“But today, I would like to share with the Parliament one more piece of information from the report: On the budget morning, the first IP address that successfully accessed EFO had been made in 32 attempts, starting from around 5 am that day.

“Such a large number of requests means that the person trying to access the document at some point has every confidence that persistence will lead to success, and this unfortunately leads us to consider whether the reason they are so persistently trying to access the EFO is because they have been successful in a previous financial activity.”

The premature publication of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) was a “fundamental breach” of the watchdog’s responsibility, a Treasury minister said.

James Murray told the House of Commons: “Last Wednesday, before the Chancellor (Rachel Reeves) began delivering her Budget speech, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) published the full EFO online.

“Let me be clear, this is a very serious breach of extremely sensitive information.

“This is a fundamental breach of the OBR’s responsibility. It is disrespectful to Parliament and should never have happened.”