I’d tell busybody Chancellor to buzz off, says watchdog

THE head of the independent Treasury watchdog yesterday said he would tell the Chancellor to ‘buzz off’ if he tried to interfere with his work.

Robert Chote, chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility, insisted he never has and never would bow to pressure from the Treasury – telling MPs ‘we write what we want’.

His comments followed claims that Treasury officials tried to change the language in the OBR’s forecasts for the economy and the public finances in the months leading up to the General Election.

The OBR was set up by George Osborne to provide independent forecasts and analysis for major fiscal events such as Budgets and Autumn Statements. The Treasury is allowed to intervene to correct factual errors before the reports are made public. But emails obtained under the Freedom of information Act showed officials appeared to overstep the mark ahead of last December’s Autumn Statement by also suggesting changes to ‘phrasing’.

Under questioning from MPs on the Treasury Select Committee, Chote ( pictured) said the OBR was strong enough to withstand such pressure.

‘I think we would be in a pretty weak state if we were not able to be robust about that,’ he said. ‘Sometimes the things you get are sensible and useful and sometimes they aren’t. At the end of the day we write what we want.’

Chote said: ‘If I was being put under serious pressure by the Chancellor, private officers, senior officials, I would tell them to buzz off, and I would tell you what was going on.’