Treasury committee rejects calls for fundamental reform of independent watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility.
The MPs said they were persuaded that ministers should consider instructing the OBR to adopt a 10-year economic forecast to complement the five- and 50-year forecasts that it already publishes.
Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the committee, said critics of the OBR had sought to characterise it as “a wielder of dark powers with a stranglehold on Treasury ministers and officials”.
The latest review by the Treasury committee followed the resignation in December 2025 of chair Richard Hughes after the OBR’s assessment of the previous budget was leaked.
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Treasury committee rejects calls for fundamental reform of independent watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Attacks on the government’s independent economic forecaster from left and right of the political spectrum are akin to “shooting the messenger”, according to an influential group of MPs.
The MPs said they were persuaded that ministers should consider instructing the OBR to adopt a 10-year economic forecast to complement the five- and 50-year forecasts that it already publishes.
Parliament should also set aside time to debate the OBR’s annual fiscal risks and sustainability report, which sets out threats to the stability of public finances over the next 50 years.
Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the committee, said critics of the OBR had sought to characterise it as “a wielder of dark powers with a stranglehold on Treasury ministers and officials”.
The OBR was set up in 2010 by the then chancellor George Osborne to provide independent forecasts of economic growth and assess the impact of the government’s tax and spending policies.
Since then, it has come for allegedly underestimating the impact of successive spending reduction budgets under Osborne’s chancellorship and, more recently, overestimating the growth potential of the economy.
The latest review by the Treasury committee followed the resignation in December 2025 of chair Richard Hughes after the OBR’s assessment of the previous budget was leaked.
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