Office for Budget Responsibility (Manifesto Audits)

Debate between Ed Balls and Neil Carmichael

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[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.