UK politics: OBR chief resigns, saying budget leak was ‘technical but serious’ error – as it happened

Richard Hughes has stepped down from the OBR Photograph: ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy

6.00pm GMT

Early evening summary

• Richard Hughes, the chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, has quit after the findings of an urgent inquiry by the watchdog into how it inadvertently published Rachel Reeves’s budget 40 minutes early. In response, Reeves said in a statement.

I want to thank Richard Hughes for his public service and for leading the Office for Budget Responsibility over the past five years and for his many years of public service.

This government is committed to protecting the independence of the OBR and the integrity of our fiscal framework and institutions.

• The OBR has published a report saying said the early leak of its budget documents before Rachel Reeves made her speech was the “worst failure” in its 15-year history as it emerged a similar breach had occurred earlier this year.

• Keir Starmer has dismissed Tory claims that Reeves misled the public before the budget about the need for taxes to rise. In a speech and Q&A this morning, he also said the government would “keep moving towards a closer relationship with the EU”. (See 12.28pm.)

• The NHS is to pay 25% more for innovative drugs in return for zero tariffs on exports of pharmaceuticals to the US under a deal with Donald Trump’s government.

• Resident doctors in England will go on strike for five days before Christmas as part of a dispute with the government over jobs and pay.

• Evidence cited by police which led to the controversial banning of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a match against Aston Villa was based on facts changed to fit a decision, Lord Mann, the government’s adviser on antisemitism, told the Commons home affairs committee, the BBC reports.

5.48pm GMT

On Radio 4’s PM programme, Douglas Alexander, the Scottish secretary, was asked if ministers wanted Richard Hughes to resign as chair of the OBR. Alexander said, as far as he was aware, it was an independent decision taken by Hughes himself.