OBR a backseat driver with out-of-date maps, thinktanks tell Rachel Reeves

OBR a backseat driver with out-of-date maps, thinktanks tell Rachel Reeves Chancellor urged to reform Office for Budget Responsibility to open way to more public investment Rachel Reeves must reform the Office for Budget Responsibility to open the way to more public investment, an alliance of thinktanks has argued ahead of the chancellor’s spring forecast on Tuesday. With Keir Starmer’s government under intense pressure after Labour’s defeat by the Greens in Thursday’s Gorton and Denton byelection , the thinktanks called on Reeves to review the watchdog’s remit. The coalition includes the Labour group Progress, usually considered on the right of the party, the leftwing thinktanks the New Economics Foundation and Common Wealth, and the feminist Women’s Budget Group. They said: “It has become increasingly clear that our current framework is contributing to instability, short-termist underinvestment and a lack of focus on long-term risks and opportunities.” Reeves is expected to focus in the spring forecast on Labour’s progress in restoring fiscal stability and point to evidence of a nascent economic recovery. Louisa Dollimore, the director of strategy at the Good Growth Foundation, which convened the group, said: “The OBR is a backseat driver with out-of-date maps: it obstructs long-term planning and investment at a moment when Britain needs both.” Hannah Peaker, the NEF’s deputy chief executive, said: “While independent scrutiny of the government’s spending plans is important, our current system means small changes in uncertain forecasts lead to governments making kneejerk policy changes of huge consequence. This is no way to run an economy.” Last week the Institute for Fiscal Studies called for the fiscal rules to be overhauled. Some economists complain that the OBR takes insufficient account of the potential benefits of future government investment, and that the way it has been set up to deliver a pass-fail verdict on the chancellor’s fiscal rules leads to hasty de...