Treasury Committee seeks 'vital' forecast assurance from chancellor

Reports of no planned forecast

Chair of the Treasury Committee Mel Stride has written to newly appointed Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng to seek assurance that an OBR forecast will be published alongside Friday’s Emergency Budget.

The request comes following reports that Friday's (23 September) announcement will be a "fiscal statement" rather than a Budget and no plans have been drawn up to ask the Office for Budget Responsibility to produce a forecast. As such, Stride wrote to the chancellor to confirm Kwarteng would honour his predecessor Nadhim Zahawi's commitment to publishing an OBR forecast alongside the statement. Kwasi Kwarteng ousts the Treasury's most senior civil servant Commenting on his correspondence, Stride described the forecasts as a "vital indicator of the health of the nation's finances", ...