Closing post
Time to wrap up… here are today’s main stories:
Chote:: Richard Hughes did a lot of great value at OBR
Robert Chote, the former head of the OBR, is urging everyone involved reflect on how you make it an orderly process so the fiscal watchdog can serve the public as well as possible.
Asked about the events of the last week – from the leak of the OBR’s outlook report, to its letter to the Treasury Committee outlining how the forecasts evolved, the Treasury’s annoyance at that, and then Richard Hughes’s resignation as OBR chief yesterday – Chote says the leak was “a very serious and unfortunate episode”.
And he pays tribute to Hughes for the work he has done over the last five years since taking over from Chote.
Chote tells the House of Lords economic affairs committee:
He has done an awful lot of great value for the work of the OBR, and his decision to step down based on what he thought was best for the future of the organsiation is entirely in character with what I would expect, and consistent with the spirit of public service that he has brought.
And that’s the end of the hearing.
