MPs announce inquiry into work of Office for Budget Responsibility | Office for Budget Responsibility
MPs have launched an investigation into the role and performance of the Office for Budget Responsibility.
The all-party House of Commons Treasury committee will spend until the end of next month investigating the independent body’s forecasting performance and impartiality. The panel will consider whether reforms are necessary 15 years after the OBR was established when George Osborne was Tory chancellor.
MPs on the committee are understood to be worried after a row between the OBR and chancellor Rachel Reeves over budget briefings.
The OBR’s then boss, Richard Hughes, complained to senior Treasury officials in the run-up to the budget about a series of leaks that he said spread “misconceptions” about the agency’s forecasts.
He later was skeptical of claims that Reeves abandoned plans to raise income taxes in the budget because of more positive forecasts, noting that Reeves knew about them long before he changed his mind.
Hughes was forced to resign after the budget due to mistakenly early release of budget documents in violation of rules governing set-piece action.
Meg Hillier, Labor chair of the committee, said MPs wanted to understand how the OBR’s role and remit had evolved and whether its relationship with the Treasury “could be reformed to ensure it helps deliver positive economic outcomes for the UK”.
He downplayed the committee’s concerns about potential bias in the OBR but said issues raised by the media, backbench MPs and the public needed to be addressed.
Hillier added: “The OBR is an important part of the UK’s fiscal framework. But it is often criticized by frustrated economists who think they should be held accountable for shouting the loudest. And we only have to remember Liz Truss’s mini-budget to remind ourselves of what happens when the OBR is disabled.”
“This inquiry is not a stick with which to beat the OBR. What my committee wants to do is have an honest conversation about what the watchdog has done well and where it needs to do better. I hope this will provide a useful basis for the new chairman when they are appointed.”
Evidence must be presented to the committee by January 30.
