Treasury

With a week to go until the referendum, nerves are running high in both the ‘Leave’ and ‘Remain’ campaigns. This morning, we’ve seen that nervousness manifest itself in a spat between senior Tories and the Treasury and the Bank of England. Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard, Lord Lamont and Lord Lawson have signed a letter saying both the BoE and Treasury have been ‘peddling phoney forecasts’ to scare people into backing ‘Remain’. In their letter to the Daily Telegraph, they go on to say that: ‘There has been startling dishonesty in the economic debate, with a woeful failure on the part of the Bank of England, the Treasury, and other

The Treasury says that the cost of the UK leaving the EU would be £4,300 per household – but compared with what? We’re not told. As a cross-bencher, I naturally take very seriously the task of checking and challenging the work of the government so I put down two Parliamentary questions which eventually elicited the response that: ‘HM Treasury did not produce a forecast of how big the economy would be in 15 years’ time….’ Really? A whole report about the impact of Brexit by the year 2030, taking in hundreds of different factors – but no estimate about how big the economy would be by then? Why on earth not? The

The Commons may have rather big legislation to debate at the moment, but the government itself seems to have tuned out until after the referendum is over. There was no Cabinet meeting this morning, and ministers are busy fighting one another at campaign events, rather than bustling about in their departments. Even departmental question sessions have changed from being an opportunity for backbenchers to ask questions about the work of Whitehall and ministers to session where the two camps in the EU referendum work together to get their messages into Hansard. Treasury questions today was a prime example. Yes, there were questions about the Northern Powerhouse and cuts to disability

Leaving the EU should boost pay and create more jobs. Spending our own money on our own priorities ensures that is true from the first post Brexit budget onwards. The dreary gloomy predictions of Remain are all based on the absurd idea that the rest of the EU will want to impose new barriers on their trade with us, and will be able to do so. As we are more the customer than the supplier and as we and they live under World Trade Organisation rules this is pure fantasy. There is one feature of the Treasury’s ludicrous forecasts for 2030 that I agree with. They reckon the UK will

The Treasury’s analysis of the short-term impact of Brexit offers us two scenarios for the two years following the referendum: a base ‘shock’ and a ‘severe shock’ scenario. The base case means 3.6pc less economic growth in the two years following Brexit, with inflation up 2.3 percentage points and house prices down 10pc. A first thing to grasp is the connection between the scenarios in this report and those in the previous Treasury report on the longer-term impact of Brexit. In its long-term impacts, the Treasury had three scenarios, for each of three options it claimed the UK had for its trade arrangements post-Brexit (all of which were very unlikely): an ‘EEA’ option; a ‘Canada’ option

We’re now at the stage in the EU referendum debate where every announcement is explained in terms of its relationship to Brexit – whether relevant of not. So today we learn that inflation is still flat, dropping to 0.3pc in April. As per usual. But bizarrely, the Treasury is pretending that this tell us about the misery coming our way if Britain walks away from Europe. Here’s what a Treasury spokesman had to say about the figures: ‘Today’s inflation figure continues the trend we’ve seen over the past year. Pay is growing faster than prices, boosting families’ spending power. Last week the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee warned that a vote to leave

Another day, another warning about the economic bombshell which would follow Brexit. This time it’s the turn of the IMF. In a press conference at the Treasury, Christine Lagarde spoke of the outcome of a vote to leave the EU ranging from ‘bad to very bad’. Whilst the IMF’s report said: ‘A vote to leave the EU would create uncertainty about the nature of the UK’s long-term economic relationship with the EU and the rest of the world. A vote for exit would precipitate a protracted period of heightened uncertainty, leading to financial market volatility and a hit to output.’ George Osborne was clearly grateful for the support of the

George Osborne’s claim that the Treasury thinks Brexit would make you £4,300 worse off has gone down like a cup of cold sick with the Leave camp. While many Brexiteers have hit back in less than polite terms, it’s Leave.EU who win the award for ‘most blunt response’. In light of the claims, Arron Bank’s Brexit group have added a new picture to their Facebook group. The banner reads: ‘If this is our key economic team we are in deep s–t’. It seems that now Leave.EU are out of the race in terms of winning the official designation, they are able to speak freely.

Punch and Judy politics is clearly the mood of the moment in the House of Commons. Last week, David Cameron offered Corbyn some motherly advice on his dress sense, while a Tory MP heckled Jeremy Corbyn by yelling ‘who are you?’ during an EU debate. This morning, it was Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell’s turn to be on the receiving end of some Chamber abuse. After trying to get the Government to withdraw its proposals over regulatory regimes for senior bankers, he sat back down but didn’t quite get the answer he expected. Before Chief Secretary to the Treasury Greg Hands stepped up to reply, a Tory MP on the other side

All Westminster might be agog with the latest shenanigans vis-a-vis the got-to-happen-at-some-point EU referendum but most sentient folk in this blessed land are magnificently uninterested in the matter. Not even this morning’s Telegraph splash – ‘Attorney General may back Brexit’  – can stir them from their slumber. At best the majors will have asked, over their E&B this morning, ‘Who is the Attorney General these days?’ North of the border, matters are just as quiet even though another great question remains unsettled. As yet, you see, there is no agreement on the terms of a ‘fiscal framework’ which will underpin the relationship between the finances of the devolved parliament in Edinburgh and the

George Osborne and John McDonnell went head-to-head at Treasury Questions today and one topic predictably dominated: tax credits. There was a charged atmosphere in the Commons as the shadow chancellor explained ‘the Chancellor has a choice before him’ and outlined his proposal for reversing the planned cuts to tax credits. The plan differs somewhat from Osborne’s: ‘He can push on with the tax giveaways to multinational corporations. He can press on with tax cuts to the wealthiest few in inheritance tax that he announced in his summer budgets. Or he can reverse those tax breaks for the few and instead go for a less excessive surplus target in 2019-20 and be in