Reform UK to overhaul OBR if it gets into power, Robert Jenrick to say
Robert Jenrick is expected to declare net-zero efforts have become a “distraction” for the Bank of England in his first major trip as Reform UK Treasury spokesman.
He will also say the budget watchdog is overstating the benefits of low-skilled immigration.
Mr Jenrick will promise not to abolish the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), promising instead to “reform” and say the Bank will remain independent if he comes in 11th.
His comments came after Nigel Farage named his top team on Tuesday, just a month after Mr Jenrick left the Conservative Party frontbencher as shadow justice secretary.
Former interior minister Suella Braverman, who joined Reform last month, became her new party’s education, skills and equalities spokesperson.
In a speech in the City of London, Mr Jenrick will accuse Labor and the Conservatives of “taking more of the British people’s money and throwing it around, regardless of how hard they work or their priorities”.
The OBR is expected to say he has exaggerated the benefits of low-skilled immigration, adding: “The entire promise of reform will be entirely costly.
“And we are happy to have our assignment marked as we are confident in the approach we will take.
“The OBR is far from perfect but the impetus for its creation was the desire to instill fiscal discipline and this is something we wholeheartedly support.
“Instead of abolition, we will reform.
“We will break this hot consensus and ensure that there is diversity of opinion.
“And we will run competitions to recruit super forecasters and pay competitive salaries to those who most accurately model the impact of Treasury decisions.”
Reform UK at the Bank of England will focus on “keeping inflation low”, according to Mr Jenrick.
He will say: “We will rid the bank of the distractions that burden it.
“This includes the Bank’s obligation to help transition to net zero.
“And we will demand that the Bank be a more open institution and that the private sector be better represented in the Monetary Policy Committee.”
Mr Jenrick previously served as Treasury secretary during Theresa May’s premiership and was communities secretary under Boris Johnson.
Dan Tomlinson, the treasury secretary, said: “Robert Jenrick is trying to win people’s minds but he can’t hide his appalling record in government.”
Mr Tomlinson said Mr Farage’s party had “already made billions of pounds through unfunded spending commitments”.
He continued: “Jenrick and the old Tory party destroyed the family’s finances and he was about to do the same again through Reformation.
“While Reformation and their Tory defectors belittled and trashed our economy, this Labor Government held fair elections to fix our economy.
“Our action has seen inflation and interest rates fall, the economy grow and wages rise, putting money back into people’s pockets.”
Mr Jenrick and Ms Braverman join Reform UK’s frontbench, alongside Richard Tice, the party’s deputy leader and spokesman for business, trade and energy, and home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf.
