Labour MP James Murray says the Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s refusal to publish the Office for Budget Responsibility’s financial forecast along with the mini-budget "played a key role in falling confidence in the pound, rising borrowing costs and market panic.
Kwasi Kwarteng says he is “relentlessly focused on growing the economy”.
“Putin’s barbaric war in Ukraine continues to put pressure on gas prices,” he says, adding that with predictions of typical bills reaching £4,000 to £6,500 a year, “people needed immediate support to get them through this winter.”
“Last month we set out the growth plan which will focus on breaking out of the high tax, low growth cycle that we were currently trapped in,” he says, enabling more money to be put in people’s pockets and raising living standards for everyone.
He adds that he wants to remind the House that he will set out the government’s medium-term fiscal plan on 31 October, and this will be accompanied by a full economic fiscal forecast published by Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves says the current economic turmoil is a “British crisis made in Downing Street”. She says no other government around the world has sabotaged its own economic credibility as UK ministers have done.
She asks: “Are the chancellor and the PM the last people left on Earth who actually think their economic plan is working?”
Kwarteng responds by saying the IMF says the government’s mini-budget has increased UK’s growth forecast.
He claims the Conservatives are the pro-growth party - facing an “anti-growth coalition”.
Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is asked whether the statement on the economy he is due to deliver on 31 October will have “confidence at its heart”.
He replies that the statement “will be relentlessly upbeat” but there will be an “iron commitment to fiscal responsibility”.
Kwarteng adds: “These are challenging times but we have got to live within our means.”
KK wasn’t put under any pressure, presumably because he hasn’t got any facts to hand until the end of October, so all we had were platitudes.