Office for Budget Responsibility Forecasts

Paul Waugh Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

As the Budget documents and as the EFO makes clear, the downgrade in productivity was real. That was a £16 billion hit to economic forecasts, and it was a challenge that we inherited as a result of what the right hon. Member’s Government did when they were in power. We took the right and necessary decisions to fix the public finances, making sure that we could do so without going down the route of uncontrolled borrowing—like his Government did—or the route of slashing public investment.

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

Mr Speaker, you were rightly furious last week when this OBR report was prematurely leaked to the public and the markets. It is clear from the independent report that this was an accident waiting to happen due to pre-existing cyber-security failures—pre-existing failures that may well have laid open previous Budgets to this kind of access, which should concern the Conservative party as much as any other party. This is about the integrity of the OBR.

The non-executive directors of the OBR, Baroness Hogg—who is totally independent—and Dame Susan Rice, both conclude that

“ultimate responsibility…rests…with the leadership of the OBR.”

I would not expect the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to say whether he has confidence in the chair of the OBR, but is it not clear that those non-executive directors lack that confidence?

[James Murray]

It is clear that this is a very serious matter, and it is right that the Government respond to it with the seriousness it demands. As my hon. Friend made clear, this is not—to quote the OBR again—

“simply a matter of pressing”

the wrong button

“on a locally managed website too early.”

This is a systemic issue and a far more serious one, and it deserves our serious attention.