Reeves had met headroom before income tax speech

THE chair of the UK fiscal watchdog has confirmed Rachel Reeves knew she had met her targets to maintain her financial buffer before delivering a speech at the beginning of November warning of the poor state of public finances.

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In a new letter addressed to the chair of the Treasury select committee, the OBR chair Richard Hughes said he was taking the “unusual step” to publish the evolution of the watchdog’s economic forecasts.

Hughes said this was due to the “unusual volume of speculation,” which came after a wide variety of rogue briefings from the Treasury.