Office for Budget Responsibility (Manifesto Audits)

Mark Field Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[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.