The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will have a different view of the economy by the time of the autumn budget, Labour frontbencher Nick Thomas-Symonds has said.
Mr Thomas-Symonds said Labour could “open the books and discover the situation is even worse than it is at the moment”.
It comes after the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) cast doubt on the spending plans laid out by both Labour and the Conservatives.
Mr Thomas-Symonds, the shadow minister without portfolio, told Times Radio: “Obviously the Government is in a very different position from us, because, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies set out, there are no specific departmental spending plans beyond March of 2025 that’s because the Government hasn’t conducted a spending review.
“We obviously can’t do that from opposition, and we’ve also been open, always that we may open the books and discover the situation is even worse than it is at the moment. We’ve never hidden from that.”
Asked if Labour would have to raise taxes, cut spending or borrow more, Mr Thomas-Symonds said: “We will put that plan on the table, of stability, of investment and of reform. The Office of Budget Responsibility will then look at it so it will be robust, and the snapshot in the autumn will be different. It will then be about growth.
“And that is why, by the way, so that we don’t have to make these trade-offs. We don’t have to get into this doom loop that the Conservatives have been in.”
