OBR chief resigns after Rachel Reeves Budget leak fiasco

After updating the Chancellor and Labour MP about the OBR's urgent inquiry into last week's Budget leak, the top mandarin said: "By implementing the recommendations in this report, I am certain the OBR can quickly regain and restore the confidence and esteem that it has earned through 15 years of rigorous, independent, economic analysis.

"But I also need to play my part in enabling the organisation that I have loved leading for the past five years to quickly move on from this regrettable incident.

"I have, therefore, decided it is in the best interest of the OBR for me to resign as its chair and take full responsibility to the shortcomings identified in the report."

Mr Hughes's resignation comes just two hours after an urgent investigation into last week's leak found the OBR had not shared the information "intentionally".

However, the probe concluded by describing the incident as the financial watchdog's "worst failure" in its history.

The watchdog, which was created by George Osborne in 2010, usually publishes its pre-prepared Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) after the Chancellor sets out their Budget.

However, in the foreword of its report, Baroness Sarah Hogg and Dame Susan Rice, non-executive members at the OBR, said of the early publication: “It is the worst failure in the 15-year history of the OBR.

"It was seriously disruptive to the Chancellor, who had every right to expect that the EFO would not be publicly available until she sat down at the end of her Budget speech, when it should, as is usual, have been published alongside the Treasury’s explanatory Red Book.

“The Chair of the OBR, Richard Hughes, has rightly expressed his profound apologies.”

The OBR added that the blunder was caused by two errors linked to its WordPress publishing site.

Responding to the report earlier today, a Treasury spokesman said: “We thank the Office for Budget Responsibility for their report. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury will respond in due course.”

However, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch claimed Mr Hughes had been used as a "human shield" to keep the Chancellor in No11.

"Someone has resigned as a result of the Budget chaos," Mrs Badenoch said.

"But it isn't Rachel Reeves. The Chancellor is trying to use the chair of the OBR as her human shield.

"But I will not let her. Why is it always someone else's fault with Starmer and Reeves?"

Mrs Badenoch is calling for Ms Reeves to resign after accusing the Chancellor of misleading the public by suggesting there was a huge £40billion black hole in Britain's finances.

Echoing Mrs Badenoch's remarks, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: “Whatever the failings of the OBR, they have not wilfully attempted to mislead the British public.

"The wrong person has resigned today, it should have been Rachel Reeves.

“I am now calling on Richard Hughes to release all his correspondence with the Chancellor in the run up to the Budget so we can see exactly what she knew and who's really to blame for this mess.”

Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer admitted this morning that he was “bemused” by the blunder.

The Prime Minister said: "Well, I’m not angry at the productivity review. It’s a good thing that reviews like that have done from time to time. I’m bemused.

"Doing it 15, 16, months into a government, it had to be done sometime, but picking up the tab for the last government’s failure, it’s been the nature of the beast, frankly, for the last 16 months, but it was given a special emphasis in that exercise.

"I’m not angry, I’m just bemused as to why it wasn’t done at the end of the government rather than done now, but I’m not saying that these reviews aren’t important et cetera."