Office for Budget Responsibility (Manifesto Audits) Debate
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Ed Balls
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Office for Budget Responsibility (Manifesto Audits)
Ed Balls Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House believes the role of the Office for Budget Responsibility should be enhanced to allow it to independently audit the spending and tax commitments in the general election manifestos of the main political parties, and calls for legislative proposals to enable this to be brought forward at the earliest opportunity.
Over the past four years, the Office for Budget Responsibility has become an established part of the framework for British economic policy-making with broad-based and cross-party support. It is vital that the OBR’s impartiality and independence is preserved. That was a point made by Members from all parts of the House when the OBR was established, and it is why there remains a consensus, which is reflected in the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011, that the OBR should not be drawn into party politics by commenting on the merits of individual policies or examining alternative policy scenarios.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend so early, but I have just realised that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury are not here for this debate. Will he perhaps tell the House where they are today?
Ed Balls
I believe that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is on a visit to the United States. It may be that the Chancellor is engaged in rather more immediate and urgent matters that have cropped up in the past 24 hours, or it may be that he will arrive in the next few minutes to respond to this debate. I had assumed that the Chancellor would respond to this debate. I do not know whether you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have had any other guidance. Anyway, let us hope that he turns up.
In the meantime, and fully consistent with that consensus, it is our view that now is the right time to take a further step to enhance the role of the OBR. I will come on to explain our strategy and seek the views of the Chancellor, so he has about 10 minutes to get here.
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Jesse Norman
I think the Minister present is fully capable of discharging any function required to see off the shadow Chancellor. A statement from the Institute for Government said:
“More feasible than making any hasty change to the OBR remit at this point would be to consider this option in detail during the five-year review of the OBR’s operation due to take place in 2015.”
How does the shadow Chancellor respond to that?
Ed Balls
In a second—and perhaps not at all. [Interruption.] Go on then. I will come to the matter of the Institute for Government’s views in a moment, when I get to the issue of timetabling. I want to set out my approach to the law, timetabling and modalities, and I will do so in that order.
Mr Newmark
While the shadow Chancellor is outlining his proposals, it would perhaps be helpful if he could explain why he opposed the OBR getting involved in auditing these sorts of things in 2010, and why he has suddenly changed his mind now. Is it because he is concerned that the public have decided that he has no economic credibility whatever?
Ed Balls
The hon. Gentleman will obviously struggle ever to have anything that might achieve a cross-party consensus in the national interest, but I will come to the political point he is making in a second. First, let me return to the serious matter that is before the House.
The OBR’s charter states that
“The Government is responsible for all policy decisions and for policy costings, i.e. quantifying the direct impact of policy decisions on the public finances. Subject to receiving sufficient information from the Treasury to do so, the OBR will provide independent scrutiny and certification of the Government’s policy costings. The OBR will state whether it agrees or disagrees with the Government’s costings, or whether it has been given insufficient time or information to reach a judgement.”
It is our proposal that the OBR play that role for the next election, not just for current Governments but for prospective Governments.
I said in my letter to the head of the OBR of 22 September last year—this is not a proposal I am making today—setting out the detail of our proposal:
“The reform I am proposing would mean the Opposition would submit costings for proposed manifesto commitments on spending and tax—obtained from, for example, the House of Commons Library, Parliamentary Questions or the Institute for Fiscal Studies—and the OBR would ‘provide independent scrutiny and certification’ of those costings.”
Those are the exact words currently in the OBR’s charter.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Why does my right hon. Friend think that the Government do not welcome this cross-party consensus that the OBR should look at the Opposition parties’ proposals for Government?
Ed Balls
I have not given up, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am hoping that if the Chancellor turns up he may end up welcoming this proposal, overwhelmed by the clarity and objectivity of the analysis that I am about to put before the House. Let us wait and see.
I accept that this reform, which I first proposed last September and has been widely discussed and debated since, is a radical change. This is the first time that any political party in Britain has said that it wants this kind of independent audit of its manifesto, but it is not without precedent. Countries that have adopted a version of this approach include the Netherlands, Australia, Canada and the United States. For the UK, while it is a radical change from what has gone before, we believe that it is the right thing to do to help restore trust in politics.
When whoever wins the next election is set to inherit not a balanced Budget, as the Chancellor promised in 2010, but on current forecasts a debt set to be £75 billion, it will be important for my party and for all parties to show that all our manifesto policies and commitments are properly costed and funded and independently audited.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
I am pleased that the shadow Chancellor is trying to build a consensus, and of course he did write his letter in September last year. However, Robert Chote wrote to the Treasury Committee on 15 January this year saying:
“If Parliament wished us to play this role in the 2015 election, we would need a very clear steer in the very near future to have any hope of putting the necessary practical arrangements in place to deliver a smooth process.”
Why has the shadow Chancellor waited for fully six months before doing anything about it?
Ed Balls
I spoke to the head of the OBR last Friday, and I will come to my conversation in a moment. I appreciate the serious way in which the hon. Gentleman is engaging in the debate, and timing is one important issue that we need to discuss today. It is important to understand that if we choose not to go ahead we do so in a full understanding of the choices we have, the steps we would need to take and the actions that would be required on the relevant timetable. If we choose not to go ahead, it is important to understand why we are not going ahead. I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s point in a moment.
Owing to its importance, I have set out from the outset to forge cross-party agreement on this important reform. The House will know that the Chair of the Treasury Committee has been a long-standing advocate of this reform, as is the current head of the OBR, Mr Chote, who said at the beginning of this year:
“I believe that independent scrutiny of pre-election policy proposals could contribute to better policy making, to a more informed public debate.”
It is true that when the OBR was initially established there was caution on both sides of the House about this proposal. In the early days, when the OBR was establishing its reputation—I think it has established its reputation now for independence and objectivity—to be fair to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when asked about this in October 2010, he said that this was
“a legitimate matter for the House to debate and decide”—[Official Report, 12 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 142.]
Ed Balls
No—once was enough. That was an encouraging thing for the Chancellor to say.
I have raised the matter in the House a number of times over the past nine months and each time I have urged us, in the spirit set out by the Chancellor, the Chair of the Select Committee and Mr Chote, to try to put politics aside and do the right thing. I am pleased to say that the Chief Secretary told the House, at Treasury questions a few months ago:
“The idea is well worth further consideration.”—[Official Report, 11 March 2014; Vol. 577, c. 173.]
We have not yet managed to achieve that cross-party consensus, but we still have a couple of hours.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
All Members on both sides of the House regard Robert Chote as an outstanding head of the OBR. Has the shadow Chancellor not seen his comments that it is better to consider the issue at the beginning of the next Parliament, rather than rush into it for 2015 and risk undermining support for the idea, which we all think is important, in the longer term?
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Given the cross-party approach and the interest, which my right hon. Friend has set out clearly, does he think that one of the reasons why the Chancellor and the Government have not agreed to the measure may be that they want to make misleading claims about the Opposition’s policies in the run-up to the election?
Ed Balls
Were the Chancellor to say that the proposals in our manifesto were uncosted and simultaneously try to block our manifesto from being independently audited by the OBR, that would look as if he had a political motive. But as I said, I am still hoping that cross-party consensus will break out in the course of my speech. My hon. Friend is being too pessimistic. Let us give it another 10 minutes.
Ed Balls
I will talk about legislation first, then I will take two more interventions.
Of course, there are a number of detailed issues to resolve. To that end, over the past eight months, I have had a series of discussions with the permanent secretary to the Treasury, with the head of the OBR, and in the normal course of parliamentary business with the Chair of the Treasury Committee and others, and I want to update the House on where I think we are.
First, on the question whether primary legislation is necessary, in the letter that I originally wrote to the head of the OBR, which I quoted a moment ago, I cited the previously declared view of the Chair of the Select Committee, who said that he was not fully convinced that the current legislation would not allow such a role for the OBR. It was uncertain, but he was not fully convinced.
However, the head of the OBR replied to me in October, saying that he had taken legal advice from the Treasury Solicitor’s department and that the view of the Treasury Solicitor was that a change in the law was required—that there would be a need for primary legislation. To that end, I wrote to the Chancellor on 15 October to confirm that we would support any changes needed to the OBR’s charter and primary legislation, and would seek to help him build a cross-party consensus to achieve that. I wrote to the Chancellor and to the Chair of the Select Committee with a proposal for the amendment of the law, with the clauses set out for discussion. I regret to say that so far the Chancellor has not replied to my letter or engaged in that discussion, but as I said, it is not too late for him to do so.
At that time, the Clerks of the House of Commons informed us that with the Chancellor’s support and an amendment to the long title of the Bill, one option would be to table an amendment to the Finance Bill. It is just two clauses, so this change could be made well in advance of the 2015 general election. Regrettably, because there was no engagement on this two or three months ago, that change to the long title did not happen. If there was a way to table those clauses for Report stage next week, we would support a Government amendment to that effect. If not, and the Government wanted to bring forward primary legislation in the autumn, for example through a one-day Bill, we would give such legislation full support.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
During the recent elections, we saw a lot of public dissatisfaction about what happens in and from this place. Some of that is to do with the lack of transparency and consensus on matters such as this. Would it not send an important message to the public if we had cross-party consensus on openness about manifestos and the figures within them?
Ed Balls
I agree with my hon. Friend, and that is why we support the role that the OBR plays. The Government proposed an independent OBR, a reform that we supported, and in that spirit we want to extend its role, as happens in other countries. It is not unreasonable, and it would exactly help with the issues of trust to which my hon. Friend refers.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I am not entirely unsympathetic to what the right hon. Gentleman asks for, but is not the fundamental problem that even a shadow Chancellor as powerful and influential as he is does not have complete control over the shadow Cabinet, or even of his leader, who make spending promises that are not part of the finance and budgeted proposals made by the shadow Chancellor?
Ed Balls
I could ask the hon. Gentleman why on earth he thinks I want to have this independent audit: to make sure it is all done through the proper process. Perhaps I should say that. Actually, the shadow Cabinet has been exemplary in not setting out uncosted promises that cannot be delivered. We have made no claim to abolish inheritance tax. That is not a commitment in a manifesto that we have to renege upon. Nor have we made a commitment to abolish tuition fees. So the hon. Gentleman raises some issues here.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
May I get to heart of the point about timing and consensus? We have already heard some quotes from Robert Chote. This is what he said when he gave oral evidence to the Select Committee and was asked whether this could be done by the next election: “It would be difficult but by no means impossible. The key thing that you would need to have is agreement in principle across the parties that it was a good idea to do it. At the end of the day, if Parliament wants us to try this, we will do it to the best of our ability given the resources and the time we have available.” Given that those statements are on the record, does my right hon. Friend agree that if this does not happen, it is because there is not a political consensus? I hope that the Minister will not say that this is about timing but will be up front about why the consensus is not there, and admit that she and her colleagues are blocking it.
Ed Balls
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we, as a House, decide to proceed in a cross-party way today, and in the coming days, this reform can be agreed over the summer, the legislation to back it can be put in place, and we can have independent audits of manifestos at the next election. It is not a matter of timetabling, because the head of the OBR says that it can be done: it is only an issue of political will. If, in the end, the Chancellor—who has not turned up—does not want to do it, it is not going to happen. It is not going to happen not because the OBR will not do it, because we will not do it, or because it cannot be done, but because Government Front Benchers do not want it to happen.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I have some sympathy with what the shadow Chancellor is trying to achieve. While he is right that the OBR should be beyond partisan politics, it is the case that it has not been beyond reproach in relation to its predictions and continues to be well out of line, given what we expected our deficit to have come down to. Does he recognise that this process is not going to draw a line under any disputes over matters to do with economic programmes? Ultimately, it will be a judgment by the voters rather than the OBR, and this process should not be allowed to take it out of their hands come election time.
Ed Balls
Of course, none of us is beyond reproach, including the OBR and including the Chancellor. The OBR has had a few rather sharp things to say about some of the Chancellor’s practices over the past few months as regards fiscal decision making. In the end, of course the voters have to decide; they have to look at the manifestos and make their judgment. In our view, if an independent body—the OBR—scrutinises the costings of individual proposals to check that they have been done properly, that can only be to the benefit of the public debate. Ultimately, it does not take away the voters’ choice, but why would we choose to have them misinformed or uninformed when we could have them properly informed? That is the choice before the House.
John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Like the Chairman of the Treasury Committee, I fully support the principle, and if we can arrive at political consensus, I would be delighted. At the session from which my colleague on the Committee, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), quoted, Mr Chote put quite a lot of barriers and difficulties in place. At the end, he said that we should not rush this to arrive at an imperfect solution. Does the shadow Chancellor accept that if we cannot get it right, that is worse than doing nothing at all?
Ed Balls
That is why I wrote to the Chancellor last October seeking to begin discussions and putting the draft clauses on the table. I have had a number of discussions with the head of the OBR, who has made exactly those points. He wants to know that the resources will be there and what the rules of engagement will be. He wants to know that this will be done properly. He wants to know, in particular, that the Government and the Treasury will engage in good faith with the process. Of course it is difficult, because so far the Chancellor has not been willing to engage with these discussions. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. However, I spoke to Mr Chote last Friday, and if we can reach agreement this week—by the end of June—he is content to proceed this year. If we are all in favour of the proposal in principle and enter into it in good faith, it can be done. Of course, if either side puts up impossible barriers in the discussions with the OBR, it will not happen. But I am up for it, and if the Chancellor was here, we could ask him whether he was too.
David Rutley
I understand what the shadow Chancellor is trying to say, but there are clear timing issues and a clear implementation risk. The OBR is an embryonic, independent body whose credibility we must maintain. We need to focus on the implementation risk.
Ed Balls
All I can say, once again, is that the head of the OBR is content to proceed. If the hon. Gentleman supports this reform, I shall share his frustration about the many months that have been wasted. I could have made this an issue of party political combat or criticism seven, eight or nine months ago, but I have said repeatedly at Treasury questions that I hope the Government will change their mind and engage. He is right that we will be timed out if we cannot make those agreements. If we can agree in the next week, we will have a full two months to work out the details. From my experience, I think that two months would be sufficient to agree on that if there is good faith on both sides.
David Rutley
If the shadow Chancellor is so enthusiastic, why has it taken him three and a half years to bring this proposal to the House in the first place?
Ed Balls
There are moments when the hon. Gentleman engages seriously in these issues, but then he reverts to the Whips’ brief and the kind of behaviour that we expect from others. The truth is that we have been trying to engage on this for nine months. We have been serious, but the Chancellor has been absent. That is the problem.
Ed Balls
I will make a little progress before giving way again.
In addition to primary legislation, which we need, and a timetable, because there is still time, the third issue is resources and modalities. In particular, who would the reform apply to? The head of the OBR is rightly concerned to ensure that this is a manageable process and that the resource implications can be taken into account. I have proposed that it should apply to governing parties and prospective governing parties. To that end, the legislation I delivered to the Chancellor in October proposed that the OBR should provide independent scrutiny and certification of the policy costings of any political party that has at least 5% of seats in the House of Commons, at the request of that party and subject to receiving sufficient information from it.
I should emphasise that my view has always been that that should be voluntary and that no party should be forced down that road, and that remains my view. Let me be clear that tough, rigorous and independent scrutiny of Labour’s election manifesto is important. I believe that it should be important for Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos, too. In tough times we must all ensure that all our policies are properly costed and funded, because people rightly want to know that the sums add up.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
Would this new-found desire for consensus not be strengthened if the shadow Chancellor and the rest of his Front-Bench colleagues admitted that the previous Labour Government played a central role in causing the problem we are dealing with?
Ed Balls
We are trying to have a discussion about an important reform for the future. There have been moments in the life of this House when consensuses have been formed. The Conservatives voted against Bank of England independence in 1998, but in the end they joined the consensus. They voted against the move from self-regulation to statutory regulation in our financial services, but in the end they joined the consensus. I think that there is now a consensus that we should not join the euro, but I wish there was a consensus that we should stay in the European Union, which would be a good thing. On this matter, however, we should be able to form a consensus.
I can agree that regulation of financial services under the previous Government was not tough enough, but I also say that, if he were here, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would agree that he criticised me at every stage, as did the Exchequer Secretary, for being much too tough on financial regulation, rather than too soft. The issue is whether we can form a consensus for the future.
Mark Garnier
I am grateful to the shadow Chancellor for giving way; he is being very indulgent. First, has Lord Eatwell joined his consensus or is he still opposed to it? Secondly—this is more relevant to the issue of party manifestos—the reality is that had we done this for the last election it would have been irrelevant, because we ended up with a coalition Government. Elections can have different outcomes, so has the shadow Chancellor thought through how the OBR would be able to make estimates in the event of a coalition Government?
Ed Balls
It would be a bit unfair to ask Lord Eatwell, who has returned to academic life and is no longer on our Front Bench in the Lords, for ex-post agreement, although if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that he could join a strong consensus in this House that included a number of Conservative Members, as we have sort of heard today and read elsewhere.
Coalition is an important issue. Going into the last election there was no OBR, but there were costed proposals in manifestos, and, after the coalition was formed, costings for proposals put before this House through the Budget process were audited by the OBR. I do not think the OBR should be drawn into coalition negotiations after elections and manifestos, because it would probably be a mistake to draw it into the political process in that way. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I do not think it is an obstacle to proceeding.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
In his letter to the Chair of the Treasury Committee, the chair of the OBR referred to this process facilitating coalition discussions, if needed, after an election.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
I hope that in the final part of his speech, my right hon. Friend will come to the same conclusion as me, which is that the only reason Government Members could be against this proposal is that they are frightened that they will no longer be able to say that our plans are no good.
Ed Balls
My hon. Friend, who regularly advises me on my speeches, can obviously see where this speech is going. I have worked hard to try to secure consensus. Despite the support of many influential figures, I have not yet managed to succeed in making it a cross-party consensus. The reason for that is that, so far, the Chancellor has not engaged. He has refused to co-operate with the discussions. He has not responded to my proposals and letters. He has not even turned up today.
The question is: why is the Chancellor so reluctant? The reason cannot be the need for primary legislation, because we will support it. It cannot be the timetable because, despite the protestations of Government Members, the head of the OBR confirms that there is time to get this done and to get it done properly. The Chancellor says that he wants to protect OBR independence, but so do we, and the head of the OBR says that this reform need not jeopardise that independence.
Ed Balls
No, the hon. Gentleman has already had one go.
What is the issue? What is going on? I am afraid that it is not hard to conclude that the Chancellor sees this as an opportunity to play political games. [Interruption.] The more that Government Front Benchers laugh, the more we see the political games they want to play.
We know from the head of the OBR that if an agreement to proceed is reached by the end of June and we can conclude its details by the end of the summer, the OBR can independently audit all our tax and spending commitments for the next general election. It is just a matter of political will. The Chancellor wants to place political traps—through his aides, he very often tells people that he is setting them here and setting them there—but he is not willing to back an important reform in the national interest. What is going on?
Why is the Chancellor so keen to prevent Labour from having its manifesto independently audited, and so reluctant to put his own party’s manifesto through the same scrutiny? Might it be that, as the head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said at the last Budget, the Chancellor is “getting into bad habits” by making tax changes that appear to bring money into the Exchequer in the short term but have a long-term permanent cost to the public finances; or that, as the IFS said at the last autumn statement, he
“continues to make specific promises on spending increases while stating that he will keep total spending at the same level”
and that he “can’t keep doing that”? The risk for the Chancellor is that people draw the conclusion that he wants the freedom to make promises in his manifesto that he knows he cannot afford and will not deliver, while making claims about Labour’s manifesto that he knows to be false, and blocking our desire for proper independent audits.
I have to tell the Chancellor and other Ministers that we remember the Conservatives’ uncosted promise to abolish inheritance tax last time around; and as for the Liberal Democrats’ promise to end tuition fees—enough said. My advice to the Chancellor, if he had turned up, and to the Chief Secretary, if he were here, would be that if they do not want to be reminded again and again of those mistakes, they should support our proposal and help us to forge the cross-party consensus we need.
It is hugely disappointing that the Chancellor seems determined to oppose this reform. I have tried hard to persuade him to put politics aside and to do the right thing. Our proposal would be the first ever such independent audit. We believe that it is essential to restore public trust in politics and to improve the nature of our political debate. It is not too late for him to come to the House to say, or to tell his Front-Bench colleagues, that he has changed his mind. I urge the House to vote to persuade the Chancellor to do just that—to change his mind, to stop playing politics and to stop blocking this important reform. If he fails to do so, people will rightly ask: what are they so scared of?
Nicky Morgan
Let me assure the hon. Gentleman that I will keep to the consensual tone that the shadow Chancellor, often with great difficulty, tried to strike. The letter from Robert Chote makes it very clear that these issues would be better discussed at the start of the next Parliament. The reality is that, actually, the Opposition are looking for a fig leaf for their lack of an economic plan. That is the reality of the motion.
Ed Balls
I spoke to the head of the OBR last Friday, who told me that if the House agrees to proceed, with Government support, by the end of June, he would be content, comfortable and pleased to proceed with the reform this year. So when the Minister says that he is against this reform, could she just correct the record, because I believe that to be incorrect?
Nicky Morgan
It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to have a conversation with the head of the OBR, but we do not know the details of that conversation; if he is going to release a transcript, I would be very interested to read it. In fact, the letter dated 15 January makes it very clear that
“To embark on this exercise in a rush, or with insufficient resources, could be very disruptive for the parties and very damaging to the OBR.”
Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that he wants it to be damaging to the OBR? I do not think that he does.
Nicky Morgan
I will come to the overall principle of having the OBR look at parties’ manifestos, but how long has it taken the Dutch Central Planning Bureau to get to that stage? If the hon. Gentleman has the answer, I would be interested to hear it.
Thirdly, there are genuine practical considerations that must be weighed in the balance. The Opposition do not seem to acknowledge that rather than producing costings of Government policies, the OBR certifies the costings already produced. The OBR, which currently employs only 19 members of staff, plus three members of the Budget Responsibility Committee, would need significant additional resources and a range of specialist skills in order to take on such a role. Have the Opposition considered where it would recruit from?
Ed Balls
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. I have discussed every issue she has raised with the head of the OBR, whose view is that they do not provide a reason not to proceed, so long as the Government support the proposal. The Minister is setting out why she and the Government do not support it, but they should not hide behind the head of the OBR. He is happy to proceed; it is she who is blocking it.
Nicky Morgan
As far as Government Members are aware, the letter of 15 January put the comments of the head of the OBR on the record. The right hon. Gentleman has not made any transcript of any such conversation available. We do not know what was discussed or what reservations were expressed by the head of the OBR.
Ed Balls
I spoke to the head of the OBR last Friday, in preparation for this debate. The right hon. Lady, who has stepped in for the Chancellor, is quoting a letter from January. Surely, to prepare for this debate, she would have spoken to the OBR in the days before. If he has changed his views since last Friday and contradicts what he told me then, I will withdraw my comments. Did the Minister speak to him; is he content to proceed, or has she not bothered to have the conversation?
Nicky Morgan
It is not a question of not bothering to have the conversation. If the right hon. Gentleman has had a conversation, where is the transcript and why has it not been released to the House? If he has a transcript, we would like to see it. We would like to know what the head of the OBR said about—[Interruption.] If I allow the shadow Chancellor to stand up again, will he tell us how many additional staff the head of the OBR said he would need to recruit, where he is going to find them from and how quickly they can be appointed? That is the premise of the right hon. Gentleman’s argument.
Ed Balls
Is the right hon. Lady really saying that I am misleading the House? I spoke to the head of the OBR last Friday, and he said to me that if the Government agree by the end of June, we can proceed and these obstacles can be overcome. In his view, the issues that the Minister is raising about resourcing and independence can all be resolved if she chooses to do so. Is she really saying that I am misleading—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Interventions must be brief; the point has been made. I call the Minister.
Nicky Morgan
I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman, for the last time.
Ed Balls
I spoke to the head of the OBR. He believes that if he is to cost manifestos in time, he will need to start in the autumn, he will need agreement by the end of June, and he will need the details to have been worked out by the end of August. The Minister is obfuscating. It is she who is blocking this, not the head of the OBR.
Nicky Morgan
Let me say for the last time that if the right hon. Gentleman wanted to pray in aid evidence from a conversation that he had last week, he should have put it in writing and presented it to the House, or placed it in the Library.
If we ask the OBR to recruit additional staff, what will they do between elections? I do not know whether Labour Members have considered the fact that what they propose would involve a radical change in the rules governing civil service contact with the Opposition. I do not know whether they have fully explored the primary legislation that would be required to make this happen, just as I do not know whether they have considered how the demands of Opposition parties would be balanced against other Government priorities.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is extremely wise in his observation. The OBR, which is a non-party political body, has said in response to a request from the shadow Chancellor, a man of the greatest dignity who should be taken seriously by Members from all parts of the House, that if that is the will of Parliament, it will do it.
Ed Balls
I shall test the hon. Gentleman’s support for my integrity. In March, the head of the OBR told the Select Committee that if the proposal was agreed across parties by early summer, he would be content to proceed, which he confirmed to me last Friday. Is the hon. Gentleman, unlike the Minister, content to accept my word that the views of the head of the OBR in March are still the same today?
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
We have had a lively debate this afternoon, with a number of contributions. The hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) made a forthright speech. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) made an important point regarding concerns about subcontracting all matters to outside bodies. He also drew a comparison between the shadow Chancellor as a consensus-builder and King Herod as a babysitter. To be fair, my hon. Friend did say he thought he might have been a little unfair, although it was not entirely clear to whom.
The hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) reminded me to use the expression “long-term economic plan” in my speech, which I had not originally intended to do, but I am grateful for that reminder. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) described this as a power grab by the shadow Chancellor, and he drew out what I think is an important point about the shadow Chancellor trying to instil some discipline into the Labour party. My hon. Friend also mulled over the prospect of the shadow Chancellor becoming leader of the Labour party. I think that is an unlikely career move—but the Labour party could certainly do worse.
The hon. Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) highlighted the fact that the OBR is an important institution. He objected to members of the Treasury Committee quoting Robert Chote, and then quoted Robert Chote. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mike Thornton) said there is a case for doing what is proposed but that we should wait until after the election, by contrast with the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) who said we should get on with it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) made a thoughtful speech, drawing on his knowledge and experience of the Treasury Committee, Edmund Burke and polling data, and argued that the reason for this motion is Labour’s lack of economic credibility. The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) made an impassioned speech, which I have to say I did not agree with—but it was impassioned.
My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) set out some of the practical difficulties of the proposal in the motion. The hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) referred to hysterical outpourings. I think he used that phrase, and certainly the expression “hysterical outpourings” springs to mind when thinking of his speech. He spent four minutes accusing the Conservative party of all sorts of things, and then said the advantage of this policy is that it would end negative campaigning. We shall see.
In an excellent and short speech, my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) raised concerns about politicisation of the OBR. My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) also made an excellent speech setting out some practical questions.
I think it is worth just taking a few moments to remind the House of why the OBR was set up in the first place. The best evidence for this is the book published after the last election by the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), and in particular his chapter describing the events of the 2009 Budget, which was very clearly a negotiation on the position that the Treasury and the then Prime Minister took on economic growth. This was not about searching hard for the truth, therefore; it was a negotiation. That is worth bearing in mind when we hear about the shadow Chancellor being a builder of consensus and a zealot in the cause of independent oversight of fiscal forecasts, because what is also clear is that the shadow Chancellor was part of those negotiations.
Mr Gauke
The shadow Chancellor says that is not true, but let me quote from page 226 of the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer’s book. He talked about discussions “rarely” reaching conclusions, and said:
“Sometimes there would be just two of us”,
meaning just him and the Prime Minister. He refers to the current shadow Chancellor being
“there on a few occasions”.
Mr Gauke
I again refer to page 226. The right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West refers to the negotiations on the growth numbers. He says that the shadow Chancellor was “there”.
We have had a thoughtful debate, and arguments have been made on both sides about whether it is right that the OBR should be able to oversee Opposition party policies. However, there is a question about timing. The shadow Chancellor explained why the position of his party when the relevant legislation was taken through was to oppose that. He said earlier today that in the early days it was cautious about protecting impartiality; now, he appears to be incautious. There is an issue here, and Lord Eatwell made the point on 8 November 2010 about embroiling the OBR in “political controversy”.
The next point to make is a practical one. The shadow Chancellor has long experience of involvement in policy matters and Budget matters. He will also have read the letter from Robert Chote of 15 January 2014 setting out the process. It involves a “preliminary ‘scorecard’ of measures”, and there is a detailed costing to note. It is an “iterative” process and during it, policies are refined and in some cases significantly amended. The important point is that this is
“a time consuming and resource intensive exercise, both for the OBR and for the analysts in the responsible departments”—
the likes of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and the Department for Work and Pensions. This is not a minor change. It is not about recruiting just a few more OBR staff; it is a fundamental change in the way the civil service operates with the Opposition.
The question we have to ask ourselves is why Labour is proposing this. As some Members made clear today, it is essentially about Labour’s lack of credibility on the economy. As Lord Prescott has said, Labour gets “smashed on the economy”. As the Leader of the Opposition’s former speech writer said, he fell out with the shadow Chancellor because
“Labour’s economic policy is nonsense.”
And as the shadow Chancellor’s old friend Charles Clarke has said:
“We rested a great deal on assuming…that plan A would not work, and that proved to be an unwise judgement.”
Ed Balls
The head of the OBR told the Treasury Committee in March that if this was agreed in a cross-party way by early summer, by which he meant the end of June, we could proceed. If the head of the OBR is willing to proceed and there is agreement today, why will the Government not agree?
Mr Gauke
The head of the OBR also made it clear that there were risks involved, and that those advocating this step would find it better not to rush into it, but to do it after the next election, and that is the position we take. This issue should be looked at again after the next election.
The reality is that Labour does not have economic credibility. It borrowed too much in the good times when it was in office, and opposed our measures to reduce the deficit in recent years. Only a year ago, the shadow Chancellor said:
“The problem with austerity is that it chokes off jobs and growth”.—[Official Report, 17 May 2012; Vol. 545, c. 717.]
Well, we are getting new jobs and we are getting the growth. The truth is that Labour is making a long list of unfunded spending pledges. Today the shadow Chancellor said, “We have been exemplary.” I could give him a long list to show that they have not. I will give Labour one answer: if they want to restore fiscal credibility, their first step—change their shadow Chancellor.
Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.