OBR 'doesn't know' if Budget will add up

THE head of the UK's official financial forecaster has warned that "we don't know" how the Government will make its spending plans add up, amid concerns over a lack of detail from last week's Budget.

Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), told MPs on the Treasury Select Committee that it is "difficult" for the fiscal watchdog to accurately forecast the outlook for public finances as a result.

It comes around two months after Mr Hughes said spending forecasts in November's Autumn Statement were beyond "a work of fiction", in a scathing criticism of the support received from the Treasury.

Yesterday, he said there is longer-term information about tax, but that spending information runs out next year.