Tories plan to Budget responsibly

Shadow chancellor George Osborne has pledged to create an office for Budget responsibility to ensure future governments keep within borrowing rules to maintain financial stability.

He told the Conservative party conference it would be independent of government, like the Bank of England, and will ‘stand in judgment over our commitments, hold us to our promises’.

But he made it clear it will lack direct enforcement powers and rely on being able to ‘let the whole country know if we try to wriggle out of them’.

He said there would be ‘no more fiddling of the rules, no more dodgy statistics, no more hidden PFI borrowing’ and ‘chancellors will be forced to behave responsibly with the public finances or face the public consequences’.

The new Office for Budget Regulation would present fiscal forecasts, including a judgement of the sustainability of public finances.