Office for Budget Responsibility

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

We have demonstrated that the OBR, alongside some of the other things we have done, is a commitment to the long-term sustainability of the British public finances, and I remind the hon. Gentleman of the following words of the Governor of the Bank of England:

“The most important thing now is for the new Government to deal with the challenge of the fiscal deficit. It is the single most pressing problem facing the United Kingdom”.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

One of the consequences of the previous Chancellor playing fantasy forecasts with this country’s growth projections is that the men and women of my constituency—and, I am sure, of elsewhere—feel they have been treated with contempt and as mere collateral damage of an election campaign. It is vital that we restore these people’s trust and confidence in Treasury reporting; it is, after all, they who are going to put this country back on its feet again. What will this Treasury team do to support that?

[Mr Osborne]

First, I will tell the Prime Minister what I am up to, because another thing that emerged over the weekend was that the former Chancellor of the Exchequer hid the numbers not only from the rest of the country, but from his own Prime Minister.