Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

We are looking specifically at the impact not just of the carbon floor price but of all the other environmental policies of recent years on energy-intensive industries. I hope, in the autumn forecast at the end of November, to give the House an update of what we propose to do to help.

[Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

T3. As we approach its first anniversary, is the Chancellor happy with the performance of the Office for Budget Responsibility?

[Mr Osborne]

Yes, I am happy with the performance of the OBR, because we have created a new institution in Britain that produces independent fiscal and economic forecasts. The absolutely astonishing revelation of the former Chancellor’s memoirs was how—[Interruption.] Let me tell Labour Members this: that book has not even been published yet, but they will be hearing a lot more about it in the months ahead, because it reveals the truth, not just about the last Government but about how the current shadow Chancellor operated in the last Government—the poisoned politics, the paralysed Government and the lack of a credible economic policy.