Daisy Cooper

I understand that the Minister says he does not have all the answers to the questions about the incredibly serious security failings at the OBR, but has he requested or received any advice on whether the attempts to access the information might have reached a criminal threshold under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 or a civil level under market abuse regulations? Are there any other arm’s length bodies, related either to the Minister’s Department or to other Departments, that might now need to conduct a similar internal review into their security? The Budget process has been a mess. There have been leaks on a level that has never been seen before and huge amounts of flip-flopping, which has created uncertainty for households and the markets and has led to businesses putting investment on hold. During the pre-Budget press conference, the Chancellor talked about a reduction in productivity growth, but failed to mention that tax receipts were higher than expected. Why did the Government omit to communicate that information? Following Sweden’s budget crisis in the early ’90s, its Government changed to a system where the Swedish Parliament saw a draft budget and debated it at length, and Opposition parties could propose alternatives and amendments. Have the Government given any consideration at all to introducing a better system? On the issue of omissions, on a number of occasions over the past year Ministers have repeated the claim that they would introduce permanently lower business rates for businesses in this country, but they omitted to say that business rates bills would go up because of the higher valuations. Pubs are now saying that their average increase will be £12,000 a year, or 76% over the next three years. Why did the Government omit to mention that?