Alison McGovern
Main Page: Alison McGovern (Labour - Birkenhead)Department Debates - View all Alison McGovern's debates with the HM Treasury
(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Kwasi Kwarteng
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He does a brilliant job of chairing his Committee and is full of wise counsel; he is absolutely right that we will and should canvass opinion widely ahead of the publication of the plan.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
The OBR was the creation of a Conservative Government and was designed to curtail wishful thinking in economic policy, so does the Chancellor agree that it is unfortunate, to say the least, that we seem to have Cabinet Ministers briefing against the economic expertise of that independent institution?
Kwasi Kwarteng
As far as I am concerned—I speak to investors regularly about this—the OBR is an institution that commands wide respect, not only in the UK but across the world. Its independence, to me, is absolutely sacrosanct.