The chairman of the Office of Budget Responsibility has said he feels “personally offended” by the early release of his budget documents and said the former boss of the National Cyber Security Center will join an investigation into the incident.
Richard Hughes said he had written to Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Treasury select committee chair Meg Hillier to apologize and launch an investigation.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, “I feel personally hurt by what happened. The OBR is proud of our professionalism. We let people down yesterday and we will make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Ciaran Martin, former chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, will provide expert input into the investigation, Hughes said.
He said that the OBR’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook – its key budget document – was accessible from outside the organisation.
He said, “The documents were not published on our webpage itself. It appears there was a link there that an outsider was able to access. We need to get to the bottom of what really happened.”
Speaking on Thursday morning the Chancellor gave his support to Hughes despite the breach. The incident was serious, she said, “but I trust Richard and OBR”.
The document’s early publication, approximately 45 minutes before the Chancellor presented his Budget in the House of Commons, meant that details of his key policies were made public even before they were announced.
“I am sorry for the Chancellor’s statement and the disruption it has caused to parliamentary proceedings,” Hughes said.
Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said the watchdog needed reform. Asked on LBC whether he thought the independent watchdog was “fit for purpose”, Sir Mel Stride said: “I think, generally, yes it is. I think it needs reform.
“Clearly, this latest incident is unprecedented and of deep concern that he should, for whatever reason, have leaked or posted the full contents of his report before the Chancellor stood down in the House of Commons.”
Reeves’ budget on Wednesday raised taxes by £26 billion in response to weak OBR forecasts, and paid for higher spending, including scrapping the two-child limit on benefits.
Relations between the Treasury and the OBR have been strained at times in recent months, with Reeves publicly questioning the timing of the review of its productivity forecasts.
He announced in the Budget that the OBR would now assess whether its fiscal rules were met once a year in the annual Budget, rather than with the usual spring statement.
It was the OBR’s decision that Reeves risked breaking its rules that prompted the Chancellor to demand savings in this year’s spring statement, including the £5 billion of welfare cuts that had to be abandoned after a backbench rebellion.
<a href