Office for Budget Responsibility takes aim at Chancellor Philip Hammond

The Office for Budget Responsibility, gave a damning verdict on the potential health of the nation’s coffers — as well as the recent spending spree by outgoing Chancellor Philip Hammond — in its latest fiscal risks report today.

It stated: “Policy risks to the public finances in the medium term are significant and look greater than they were two years ago. In his recent statements the current Chancellor has all but abandoned the Government’s legislated objective to balance the budget by the mid-2020s.”

It added that the unfunded £27 billion a year NHS settlement announced in June 2018 “has cast doubts over the Treasury’s usually firm grip on departmental spending”.

Robert Chote’s report also hit out at Conservative leadership contenders for making “a series of uncosted proposals for tax cuts and spending increases that would be likely to increase government borrowing by tens of billions of pounds if implemented”.

He added: “All the signs point to a fiscal loosening and less ambitious objectives for the management of the public finances.”

The OBR warned: “It must be understood that additional tax cuts or spending increases would push government borrowing and debt up from the levels expected in our forecasts and that there is no war-chest or pot of money set aside that would make them a free lunch.”