Rachel Reeves acknowledges damage of ‘too many’ budget leaks
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The Chancellor Rachel Reeves has acknowledged there were “too many leaks” in the run-up to last month’s budget.
The flow of budget content to news organisations was “very damaging”, Ms Reeves told MPs on the Treasury select committee on Wednesday.
“Leaks are unacceptable. The budget had too much speculation. There were too many leaks, and much of those leaks and speculation were inaccurate, very damaging”, she said.
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The cost of UK government borrowing briefly spiked after news reports that income taxes would not rise as first expected and Labour would not break its manifesto pledge.
An inquiry into the leaks from the Treasury to members of the media is to take place. But James Bowler, the Treasury’s top official, who was also giving evidence to MPs, would not say the results of it would be published.
Committee chair Dame Meg Hillier asked if the group of MPs could see the full inquiry.
“I’d have to engage with the people in the inquiry about the views on that”, replied Mr Bowler, permanent secretary to the Treasury.
The entire contents of the budget ended up being released 40 minutes early via independent forecasters, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
A report into this error found the OBR had uploaded documents containing their calculations of budget numbers to a link on the watchdog’s website it had mistakenly believed was inaccessible to the public.
Tax rises ruled out
The chancellor ruled out future revenue-raising measures, including applying capital gains tax to primary residences and changing the state pension triple.
Committee member and former chair Dame Harriet Baldwin had noted that the chancellor’s previous statement to the MPs when she said she would not overhaul council tax and look at road pricing, turned out to be inaccurate.
During the budget, an electric vehicle charge per mile was introduced, as was an additional council tax for those with properties worth £2m or more.
