Speeches by Dean.

“Mr Hughes, you are probably aware of some criticism of the OBR’s role in our national policy debate at the moment. That is not necessarily about the work you do or your independence, but the reliance on your forecasts above all others in determining the Government’s fiscal policy. I would like to hear your response to …”

“We will come back to fiscal headroom later on, but you mentioned that the OBR’s role has been the same over the past 10 or 15 years. Can you describe to us how your relationship with the Treasury has changed? Has it changed from Government to Government? Has it changed over time? It would be interesting to get an insig…”

“I am going to skip backwards slightly to the productivity conversation, because I would like clarity on public sector output. We had some interesting comments from Andrew Bailey when he was in front of the Committee last month; he talked about how productivity since 2019 can be 8% to 9% lower, and as high as 17% to 18%…”

“When you say you scrutinise the costings, it is unclear to me how a decision is made about when the OBR is to score a policy. I will give an example so that we can get to the point more quickly. Obviously, we did not score the planning reforms last time, but we have this time. I think the intention of the planning refo…”

“On a final point of clarification, you said that you take the view, so is it your decision when to score a policy? There is no veto power from the Government to say, “No, hold this one back—we want that to be scored next time, not this time.” They do not have the power. It is up to you when you are ready to score it.”

“I understand that you have not yet done the full assessment; I am just trying to get a sense of the direction. You said that there is pressure in both directions, but it feels to me that it should end up being net positive for the public finances overall, but maybe not to a large extent. Or do you think there is a risk…”

“Is that to do with the fact that the large bulk of the savings have been driven by changes to PIP, which is obviously not exclusively for people who are out of work—it applies to people both in and out of work? Does that add greater uncertainty about the employment benefits? I am pushing you on this because a lot of th…”

“To probe on this a little further, your answers around the uncertainty of the indirect effects, particularly on the labour market, are similar to an answer the Chancellor gave me last week in the response to the spring statement. My question to her and to you is: could it also go the other way? The Chancellor’s pitch i…”

“We have been talking about fiscal headroom a little bit, but I want to get into it in a bit more detail. Perhaps I will start with you, Mr Johnson, because you have said some stuff about it already. I want to focus on this amazing coincidence that we have arrived back at the £9.9 billion figure.”

“Yes, exactly. We spoke to the OBR this morning, and they indicated that it could be a coincidence, but it does not seem to me like it is. It seems that this figure was being targeted. Is that your view as well? What do you think this does to the fiscal policy decision-making process?”

“As you say, it kind of feels like achieving the number is driving the policy, rather than the other way around. If it was just scored normally, and it was, say, half a billion out from here, would that have made much difference? Dr Saleheen, how would the markets have responded if it ended up that there was £8.5 billio…”

“The hon. Lady is making an excellent case for solving the Croydon bottleneck, as it is known. As she has outlined, it affects not only her area of Croydon, but my area of Carshalton and Wallington—the hon. Member and I have seen each other on the train on the way into this place. Does she agree that public transport an…”

“The OBR said that the information it received on the package of welfare cuts was late, contained insufficient detail and that the estimates are highly uncertain, and it will now have to certify them in the next forecast. Can the Chancellor confirm whether that means the Government will have to go further, with even dee…”

“I am going to move on to motor finance. You recently made an announcement about a consumer redress scheme potentially being introduced, depending on the Supreme Court result. Can you tell us more about why you think that approach may be appropriate, and what it will look like?”

“I would like to probe a bit further on the perceived distance between what the Government are saying and what the regulator’s response has been. We have quotes from the Prime Minister saying regulation will be cut back and that regulations have been allowed to bloat and block meaningful growth in this country. We have …”

“Let me come back in, though. To me, cutting the number of data requests and stopping overlap seems like a tidying up exercise, as opposed to the deregulatory agenda the Chancellor described. Is your response partly a warning to Government that we should not go too far on this; that we have hard-won stability as a resul…”

“On that point, your submission to the Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee was interesting. There is a table of potential trade-offs. A lot of them talk about setting boundaries—the number consumers in financial distress does not grow by more than x%, for example. They are all written in these terms. Read anot…”

“I guess some consumers and smaller businesses might ask why there is this trade off. Who is this growth for if, in order to achieve it, we need to accept more consumer harm and potentially less competition in the market?”

“I would like to pick up on something you said in answer to Mr John Glen. You said that there is a huge amount of coherence across the regulators. The Treasury’s “New approach” policy paper says the opposite. It says, “Regulation can be too complex and duplicative,” and it talks about how, although each regulatory inter…”

“Going further and co-ordinating better sounds quite a distance away from what the Government think is achievable by regulatory reform. They even say in their paper that they think that “the impact of red-tape costs could be as high as 3-4% of GDP”. They admit in a footnote that that is fairly loose and based on figures…”