The rapid report is out. Not great for the OBR:
“It is the worst failure in the 15-year history of the OBR. It was seriously disruptive to the Chancellor, who had every right to expect that the EFO would not be publicly available until she sat down at the end of her Budget speech, when it should, as is usual, have been published alongside the Treasury’s explanatory Red Book. The Chair of the OBR, Richard Hughes, has rightly expressed his profound apologies.”
Essentially the report lays out that an unlisted download link went live too early. It concludes:
“This event is an object lesson in the challenges faced by small organisations to keep pace with online developments, options and threats. Although it is not our business to advise others, at the urging of our expert adviser we would encourage other agencies of government handling sensitive material to use this event as a prompt to review their own arrangements.”
The Treasury says James Murray will “respond in due course.“ He’s in the Commons shortly…
Red Wall Labour backbencher Jonathan Brash told GB News that Starmer should resign:
“I’m completely fed up about it, and I think it’s got to the point now where I genuinely think that, as far as the Prime Minister is concerned, it’s not a case of if, it’s when.”