Treasury minister claims OBR could not have assessed mini-budget in time

Andrew Griffith said the level of ‘detail’ in the growth plan made it impossible for the OBR to assess it before the government published it. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

A Treasury minister has contradicted the UK’s independent watchdog for public finances, claiming it would not have been able to produce a forecast in time for the government’s mini-budget.

Andrew Griffith, the financial secretary to the Treasury, told broadcasters the growth plan put forward by the prime minister, Liz Truss, and the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, contained “a lot of detail” and repeatedly asserted it was “40 pages long”, meaning it would have been impossible for the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to have produced an accurate forecast in time.