Brexiteers refute ‘doom and gloom’ OBR forecasts

Iain Duncan Smith - credit PA

Leading Conservatives who campaigner for Brexit have dismissed the official Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) economic forecasts as “doom and gloom”.

This has forced the Treasury to defend the publication, which came alongside Chancellor Philip Hammond’s Autumn Statement.

The OBR yesterday painted a stark picture of the UK’s economy post-Brexit, with growth set to slow down dramatically while the Government will be forced to borrow an extra £122bn following June’s referendum.

In his first major set piece event as Chancellor, Philip Hammond revealed that debt as a proportion of GDP would reach record levels of 90.2 per cent in the year 2017-18.

But leading members of the campaign to exit the European Union have reacted furiously, with former minister Iain Duncan Smith accusing the OBR of portraying “another utter doom and gloom scenario”.

"The key thing is that the OBR has been wrong in every single forecast they've made so far. On the deficit, on growth, on jobs, they've pretty much been wrong on everything,” he told the Daily Telegraph.

An unnamed minister also told the paper: "We were told we would be in a recession. We are not. These predictions are worthless."

The OBR said that producing a forecast was “far from straightforward”, as it had not received additional information from the Government about its Brexit negotiating plans.

In the Commons, another former minister, John Redwood, said: "The OBR is probably still quite wrong about 2017 - their forecast is too low, their borrowing forecast is too high, and we will get good access to the single market once we are out of the EU."

Backbench Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg also played down the OBR’s forecasts.

"It seems to me that there are two problems with those assumptions," he told Sky News.

"One is that they assume that we will apply tariffs on the same basis inside the European Union, which the Chancellor will know he will be able to remove. And secondly, they're particularly gloomy on the prospects for financial services."

But Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Gauke defended the independent body.

He told BBC Newsnight: "We have an independent body that makes the forecasts and it is sensible for a government to work on the basis that that independent body has got it right."

The minister added: "People of course are entitled to their opinion and I guess in a year or two's time we can look back and see who was right and who was wrong."

Labour’s former shadow Europe minister Pat McFadden said: "Today, the real picture of Britain's post-Brexit economy emerged - borrowing up, growth down, investment lower, prices higher.

"The eye-watering £58.7bn Brexit borrowing bill means less money for public services, not more as we were promised.

"The Government must now do everything it can to safeguard jobs and investment, which means rejecting a hard and destructive Brexit."

And former Tory minister Anna Soubry weighed in, telling Sky News: "The figures from the OBR show the Brexit chickens are coming home to roost."

Speaking to the same show, Mr Duncan Smith added: "The Remainers should stop complaining."