The OBR has published its review of the March 2024 forecast for departmental expenditure limits. This is what Reeves was relying on at the start of her budget statement…
“The conclusion reached by the OBR is that, had the information that has since been shared by the Treasury been made available to them at the time of the March Budget,
‘… a materially different judgement about RDEL spending in 2024-25 would have been reached. The underspend assumption of £2.9 billion would very likely have been dropped, and so there would have been a materially higher DEL forecast for 2024-25 in the March 2024 EFO. However, it is not possible to judge now exactly how much higher.’
This is because, without rewriting history on the basis of greater pre-forecast information and challenge, it is not possible to judge how much of the £9.5 billion additional pressures identified from the information provided by the Treasury for this review, as existing at the time of the challenge panel in February, would have been absorbed and offset by other savings. However, the OBR would unquestionably have given more pointed warnings in the EFO about the policy choices that would have to be made.”
So the Treasury itself under Labour identified a £9.5 billion ‘Tory black hole.” Chief Treasury Secretary Darren Jones was on Politics Live right now peddling the “materially different” line “to use the language of the OBR” in justification for the budget’s policies. It is obviously in Labour’s interests to discredit the OBR’s previous forecast in light of its current one…
No sign of a £22 billion black hole as promised. Rows over the OBR’s politicisation are only going to get hotter…
Read the full review below:
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”