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The head of the government’s budget watchdog has stepped down after details of Rachel Reeves’ announcements were mistakenly published before they were made.
Richard Hughes, chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), said he was resigning to allow the organisation to ‘quickly move on’.
He had come under immense pressure after their forecast – which sets out the potential impacts of measures announced in the Budget – went up online 40 minutes before Reeves got to her feet.
The unprecedented leak caused chaos in the House of Commons, with MPs complaining that major government decisions were made public before they had an opportunity to scrutinise them.
Speaking in the Commons this afternoon, Chief Secretary to the Treasury James Murray said: ‘I understand events are moving quickly, and I understand from messages passed to me, there has been an event, the chair of the OBR has resigned.’
He had previously refused to say whether anyone at the OBR, which was set up by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2010, should step down over the leak.
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He asked to put on record the government’s thanks for ‘his dedication to public service’.
The chairman, who first took on the role in October 2020, had been reappointed to a second five-year term in office earlier this year.
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Immediately after the Budget, a spokesperson for the Chancellor said she had full confidence in Hughes to continue leading the body.
But attention has continued to focus on the OBR in the days afterwards, as officials appeared to publicly contradict Reeves’ narrative about the state of the economy in the weeks leading up to the announcement.
The Chancellor had argued low productivity in the UK meant she would need to make difficult decisions such as hiking taxes.
According to the OBR, though, the fall in productivity had been more than made up for by increases in tax intake.
This morning, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there was ‘no misleading’ from Reeves ahead of the Budget.
He argued that the OBR’s productivity review had showed the Treasury had £16 billion less to play with, and that was not ‘an easy starting point’ even if that shortfall was cancelled out by increased tax intake.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch wrote on X after Hughes’ resignation: ‘The Chancellor is trying to use the Chair of the OBR as her human shield. But I will not let her.
‘Why is it ALWAYS someone else’s fault with Starmer and Reeves?’
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