Nigel Farage may scrap OBR if Reform wins next general election

Nigel Farage has said he is giving “serious thought” to scrapping the UK’s budget watchdog if Reform UK wins the next general election.

The Reform leader said the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is “a Blairite-style quango” that is “dictating policy to elected politicians”.

He said it needs to be looked at whether the UK would be “better off” without the independent body.

Responding, Treasury minister James Murray warned against “fiscal recklessness” and claimed Mr Farage would “hammer the British economy with a Liz Truss plan on steroids”.

Mr Farage told The Telegraph: “I have questioned the need for it. The question we have to ask ourselves is ‘is the OBR serving any useful purpose?’”

He added: “We have to discuss whether we would be better off without the OBR. I am giving that very serious thought.”

Mr Farage said: “With the OBR I worry once again that we have a Blairite-style quango effectively dictating to elected politicians what they should or should not do.

“It seems that in too many areas of our public life the power has moved to judges and quangos and not the Government the people choose.”

The OBR was created by the Conservative-led coalition in 2010 to produce economic forecasts for what will happen with the economy and public finances.

These five-year forecasts are published twice a year, alongside the budget and spring statement, and incorporate any tax and spending plans being announced.

However, the OBR has been criticised for the accuracy of its forecasts and for concerns about excessive influence over decision making as an unelected body.

The finance watchdog is currently seeking a new chairman after Richard Hughes resigned from his post following the leaking online of its forecast 45 minutes before the budget was announced in November.

It also emerged last month that OBR officials had raised concerns with the Treasury about budget leaks spreading “misconceptions” about its forecasts.

Mr Farage has said the five-year forecast “distorts policy”, adding: “Chancellors become beholden to it rather than doing their own thinking.

“Given the economic decline that we’re in, we need a government of radicalism. It is difficult to imagine the OBR is capable of radicalism in any way at all.”

Before the creation of the OBR, economic forecasts were made by the Treasury, leading to accusations of the numbers being skewed to benefit the government.

Mr Farage declined to answer who would be responsible for economic forecasts if the OBR was to be scrapped.

He said: “The ultimate forecaster is called the bond market and that is the reality of life.”

Former prime minister Liz Truss’s decision to avoid getting the OBR to analyse her “mini-budget” in 2022 was seen as having contributed to the negative market reaction that led to her resignation.

Chief secretary to the Treasury Mr Murray said: “Not content with taking advice from Liz Truss, Nigel Farage is now willing to go further.

“Working people know the price of fiscal recklessness – many are still paying huge sums more on their mortgages than they would have done before Liz Truss crashed the economy. Yet Farage still called it the best Conservative budget since 1986.

“It’s time Nigel Farage realised that politics isn’t a game. He’d hammer the British economy with a Liz Truss plan on steroids – and it’s working people and British businesses who’d be left to foot a very heavy bill.”