‘The Budget received full support’: PM's top aide denies Chancellor misled the public and Cabinet
Rachel Reeves has been accused of lying to the public in the run-up to the Budget
Sir Keir Starmer’s top aide has denied claims Rachel Reeves misled the public and Cabinet Ministers over the state of the nation’s finances ahead of last week’s Budget.
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The Chancellor has faced calls to resign over what she told the public and markets about the state of the economy before the autumn Budget.
She now faces a growing row over pre-Budget speculation that she faced as much as a £20 billion gap in meeting her fiscal rules, partly as a result of a downgrade in productivity forecasts.
Those rumours were fuelled by Ms Reeves when she used a speech on November 4 to suggest tax rises were needed because poor productivity growth would have "consequences for the public finances".
Speaking to LBC’s Nick Ferrari at Breakfast, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, Darren Jones, categorically denied Ms Reeves lied, saying the Budget had the “full support” of the cabinet.
“No Cabinet colleagues are involved in the back end of the Budget process if it has a direct effect on their departments in terms of taxation or policy decisions,” he told LBC.
“Then all the other Cabinet Ministers are briefed on the context in the run-up and were briefed in Cabinet on the morning the Budget was released.
“The Budget received the full endorsement and support of the Cabinet in advance of the Chancellor going to Parliament.”
Mr Jones told Nick he “doesn’t accept” the allegations against Ms Reeves.
Explaining the Government’s position, he said: “I think we need to be clear about what we're talking about.
“Of course, this Budget raised £26 billion. That's between the 20 and 30 billion pounds that she referred to.
“The OBR forecast, the Office of Budget Responsibility, was forecasting how much additional income against costs we might have by the end of the budget period, which is 2030, and it came out with £4 billion in 2030.
“But that's before you even got to things like the headroom, which needs to be around 20 billion pounds.
“The Chancellor didn’t mislead anyone,” he concluded.
He pointed to the OBR’s decision to downgrade productivity, which he says brought the nation’s fiscal headroom down from £20 billion to the £4 billion reported in recent days.
Sir Keir Starmer is set to give a speech this afternoon, throwing his support behind Ms Reeves and her Budget decisions.
He is expected to say “economic growth is beating the forecasts”, but the Government must go “further and faster” to encourage it.
Speaking ahead of the speech, Mr Jones said: “The Prime Minister has been intending to give a speech post-budget for a little while and he's doing so because, of course, the economy is still not firing on all cylinders.
“This government is absolutely focused on getting it into that place and it's right that the Prime Minister is involved in that debate in the way that you would expect.
“The Prime Minister will be setting out today how we get the economy moving, getting things built better, more quickly and more cheaply, as well as tackling some areas of reform on welfare.
“It will set the long-term direction for the course of this Parliament. It will be the points that the public can hold us to account to by the time we get to the ballot box in 2029..... I get that the public are dissatisfied with the economy and public service. I am a member of the public, so I agree with them.
“But as I say, the public rightly understands that it takes a bit of time to turn the country around, but that is what we're spending our time focused on delivering.”
When pressed by Nick to give the Budget a score out of 10, Mr Jones said: “Well, if the test of the budget was the test the Chancellor set, which was, have you been able to help people with the cost of living, have you been able to protect funding for the NHS, and have you been able to get debt falling... alongside fiscal rules and headroom, then of course it would be 10 out of 10.”