OBR “there to make sure money is spent wisely and properly”, Starmer warns

Keir Starmer has warned that the Office for Budget Responsibility is “there to make sure money is spent wisely and properly” following reports that Liz Truss is not planning to ask the body to do a formal forecast on her cost-of-living plan.

Commenting after The Times reported that the leadership candidate will not have the non-departmental public body provide an assessment of the public finances before she announces proposals in an emergency Budget next month, the Labour leader said the Tories should have set out their plan “months ago”.

He added: “But the OBR is there to make sure money is spent wisely and properly, so of course you need the OBR in place for that and I think that’s why there’s been such a reaction to Liz Truss’ proposal that she’s just going to put that to one side.”

Truss has said that, if she is selected by Conservative members as the next Tory leader and Prime Minister, she would introduce an emergency Budget in September. Critics have said doing so without an OBR forecast would be “worrying” and her rival Rishi Sunak has accused her of attempting to “avoid independent scrutiny”.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said that “there isn’t a good reason” for failing to commission an assessment from the OBR and warned that Truss would be basing her emergency Budget on “very out of date” forecasts.

“More important than that and what we need to hear is what are you going to do about the cost-of-living crisis?” Starmer asked this morning.

“Labour is leading on this, we’ve said freeze those bills this winter, make sure people don’t pay any more for their energy prices alongside that have an insulation scheme that means that in the middle- and long-run we actually have a better answer to the energy crisis.”

Analysts have predicted that energy bills could rise to more than £3,500 when the price cap is adjusted in October, and will increase again to more than £4,200 in January next year. Labour announced a plan last week to freeze the energy price cap, set by regulator Ofgem, until April next year.

The Labour Party said the plan to freeze gas and electricity bills for eight months would cost £29bn and could be paid for in part by expanding the scope of the windfall tax the government has imposed on oil and gas companies.

Labour has also called on the next Prime Minister to reverse “12 years of failure” by adopting its plan to insulate 19 million homes as part of a “national mission” to reduce energy bills and make the UK more energy independent.

The party has said its proposal, to insulate 19 million homes over the next decade, would save an average of £1,000 per home. It also said that if 1.9 million homes were insulated each year the savings in the first three years alone would be £11.4bn – based on current projections that energy prices will remain high.

According to think tank New Economics Foundation, the UK spends more money on energy wasted through the walls and roofs of our houses than any other country in Western Europe. Under the Tories, insulation rates have fallen to below 15 times less than the rate the last Labour government were achieving before 2010.

Asked whether he supports criminal barristers who have voted to go on strike today, the Labour leader said: “I quite understand, whether it’s barristers or others, why people and how people are struggling to make ends meet.

“And what I want to see is the government to recognise that, do something about it, resolve the issues in whichever sector they are – but also have bigger picture answers.

“The answer for many, many people in terms of bills is things like freezing the energy prices because that’s going to drive people even further into problems with their bills this winter. So I want to see the government step in and actually help resolve these issues. Instead, we’ve got a government doing absolutely nothing.”

Criminal barristers in England and Wales, who have been stopping work on alternate weeks since June, voted in favour of an all-out, uninterrupted strike that would start on September 5th in their dispute with the government over jobs and pay.

Pressed on whether Labour is supportive of workers going on strike more generally, Starmer said: “I want to see these issues resolved. Many working people are really struggling to make ends meet. Labour understands that.

“That’s why we put our proposal on the table to freeze energy prices, because that’s one way of ensuring not only that those prices don’t go up this winter but we bring inflation down. Our plan to freeze prices means inflation comes down by 4%. That’s a big driver of many of these issues.”

More than 1,900 members of Unite working at Felixstowe port in Suffolk began eight days of industrial action on Sunday, the first strike at the port since 1989. Labour frontbencher Alex Norris said this morning that “of course” workers who do not feel able to pay their bills will “take action”.