Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government on which date each department submitted their final costings for new policy measures included in the Spring Statement 2025, and how many were submitted after the certification deadline set by the Office for Budget Responsibility.

The OBR certification deadline refers to Policy Costing Notes. These documents outline the methodology used for costing policies. The OBR scrutinise them to determine that the costing is reasonable and central.

HM Treasury submitted notes for all policies to the OBR in advance of the certification deadline and an initial policy package was certified by the OBR.

The OBR noted in their March 2025 Economic and Fiscal Outlook that 'relatively small changes were made to the policy parameters of two welfare measures following the costings certification deadline', the changes to the Universal Credit Health Element, and the Universal Credit Standard Allowance.

The OBR did not certify the costings for the final policy design for these measures, although they noted that the relatively small size of the changes means they 'do not expect this will have a material impact on the costings'.