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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Rowena Mason Whitehall editor

Treasury watchdog to ask Kwarteng to hand over growth forecasts

Kwasi Kwarteng
Kwasi Kwarteng. Stride said people would be ‘watching very closely what the prime minister and chancellor have to say at Conservative party conference’. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA

Kwasi Kwarteng will be called before parliament’s Treasury watchdog and asked to hand over independent growth forecasts, as its chairman said there is “not a very broad path” out of the current economic situation.

Mel Stride, a Conservative MP and chair of the Treasury committee, said Kwarteng was “very, very unlikely to reverse” the £45bn of unfunded permanent tax cuts he announced last Friday, even though that is an option. The alternative, he said, was to act quickly to “demonstrate to the markets that growth is realistic”. The third option would be deep cuts to public spending, but that would be difficult given the current pressure of inflation, Stride said.

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