Opposition Day — Office for Budget Responsibility — Independent Audit of Spending and Tax Commitments in Manifestos — 25 Jun 2014 at 18:50

The majority of MPs voted against the Office for Budget Responsibility independently auditing the spending and tax commitments in the general election manifestos of the main political parties.

MPs were considering the following motion:

• That this House
• believes the role of the Office for Budget Responsibility should be enhanced to allow it to independently audit the spending and tax commitments in the general election manifestos of the main political parties, and
• calls for legislative proposals to enable this to be brought forward at the earliest opportunity.

In this vote majority of MPs supported an amendment to that motion which replaced it with the following:

• That this House
• recognises the important role of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in producing independent forecasts for the economy and the public finances, and the value this has had in restoring trust in official forecasts;
• notes that the OBR is a newly independent institution and judges that it would not be appropriate to involve it in party political matters at its first election;
• notes the comments made by the Chairman of the OBR, Robert Chote, in a letter dated 15 January 2014 to the House of Commons Treasury Committee that ‘to embark on this exercise in a rush, or with insufficient resources, could be very disruptive to the parties and very damaging to the OBR’; and
• supports the view expressed in that letter that it is ‘better to consider these issues at the beginning of the next Parliament’.

Debate in Parliament | Source |