Office for Budget Responsibility (Manifesto Audits)

Debate between Ed Balls and Chris Ruane

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[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?

The Economy

Debate between Ed Balls and Chris Ruane

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

A Greek tragedy. [Laughter.]

[Ed Balls]

Well, at least that was not an animal noise.

Something has been puzzling me in recent months. Why does this Chancellor have such a love of the nautical metaphor? Navigating through choppy waters, steering a steady course, sailing into strong global head winds—where does he find all those boating metaphors? But this, of course, is the Chancellor who likes to spend his summers gossiping on the yachts of his friends.

I have said many times in the past year that the Chancellor must learn the lessons of history if he is to avoid repeating the mistakes of history. I am sorry to have to raise that rather unfortunate episode in his history again. I know that it is a bit irritating for Members, even a bit annoying, but the Prime Minister said that I was the most annoying person in politics, and I must live up to my reputation.

As a matter of fact, my reign at the top table did not last very long. A few days later, The Sunday Times conducted a poll asking the public who was the most annoying person in British politics. It turned out that the Prime Minister is just as annoying as me, it turned out that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is more annoying than me, and it turned out that the Deputy Prime Minister is more annoying than all of us. But who is the most annoying person in British politics today? It is still Lord Mandelson, the Chancellor’s yachting partner.

I know Lord Mandelson well. He is a good friend of mine. [Laughter.] He is, actually, and I know that he will agree with me on this. If the Chancellor and his friend the Prime Minister have found us annoying so far, they should bear in mind that this is only the beginning; and when the Chancellor boasts that he narrowly avoided a summer Greek crisis, we know what he is really remembering.