Office for Budget Responsibility (Manifesto Audits)

Debate between Mark Garnier and Ed Balls

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[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.]

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Amendment of the Law

Debate between Mark Garnier and Ed Balls

Thursday 20th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

I do not think he will either. May I ask the Financial Secretary how it is going since his comments on women and the Monetary Policy Committee? Is he still revelling in that? If things were done on merit, he would be out on his ear.

I hope that the Chancellor will think again and join me, the Chair of the Treasury Committee and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in supporting reforms to allow the Office for Budget Responsibility to audit independently the spending and tax commitments in the manifestos of the main political parties before the next election. We know from the head of the OBR that that can be done. Let us be honest: it is all a matter of political will. The problem with the Chancellor is that he wants to set traps, but he cannot be transparent on the matter of OBR audits. Why does he not think again, join the cross-party consensus and do the right thing?

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

Why was the right hon. Gentleman formerly so keen that the OBR should not do that? Why did Labour members of the Treasury Committee argue in 2010 that it should not happen?

[Ed Balls]

The irony is that back in 2011 the Chancellor was in favour of it, and now he has changed his mind. The OBR, which we supported from the outset in this Parliament, has established a good track record, and we are happy for our manifesto to be audited. What is it about the Conservative Front Benchers that means that they are scared of independent OBR audit of their manifesto? Who knows?

I return to the welfare cap, and I will give a bit more detail for Government Members. We have had a lot of tough and divisive talk from the Chancellor on welfare over the past three years, but it cannot hide the fact that social security is up by £13 billion compared with his plans, particularly because of his failure on housing benefit. We have called for a cap on social security spending, and we will support the welfare cap next Wednesday, but we will make different and fairer choices to keep the social security bill down. We will introduce a compulsory jobs guarantee to get young people back to work. We will scrap the bedroom tax, which is not only unfair but could end up costing more money, not less. We will also scrap the winter fuel allowance for the richest 5% of pensioners, get more houses built and tackle the low wages that have pushed up spending on housing benefit. That is the fair way to ensure we get people back to work and get welfare costs under control.