Treasury launches inquiry into budget leaks with ‘full support’ of Rachel Reeves

The Treasury has launched an inquiry into autumn budget leaks after a chaotic buildup to Rachel Reeves’s economic statement last week.The Treasury minister James Murray said the department’s permanent secretary, James Bowler, would review “security processes” to inform future events.“The government put the utmost weight on budget security, including the prevention of leaks of information,” Murray said on Wednesday.“A leak inquiry is now under way with the full support of the chancellor and the whole Treasury team.”It comes after important policies such as a freeze on income tax thresholds, a pay-per-mile levy on electric vehicles and a tourist tax were reported by the media before the budget on 26 November.The Conservatives have claimed the leaks were unprecedented and part of an effort by Reeves to manipulate public opinion.The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, said at prime minister’s questions yesterday: “If she was a CEO, she would have been fired and might even have been prosecuted for market abuse.”The speaker of the house, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, also criticised the leaks, calling it the “hokey cokey budget” and said policy should be announced first to the House of Commons.The chair of the Treasury select committee, Meg Hillier, said: “Leak inquiries have a habit of not finding someone responsible. But if somebody is found responsible, will they follow the lead set by Richard Hughes?”Murray said he would “not speculate on the outcome of the leak inquiry”.Hughes quit as chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) on Monday after it mistakenly published a key document before the chancellor delivered her speech.Before the chancellor made her statement last week, the OBR had also raised complaints about budget leaks.Prof David Miles, of the OBR’s budget responsibility committee, told MPs this week: “I think it was clear that there was lots of information appearing in the press which perhaps wouldn’t normally be out there and that this wasn’t from our point of view particularly helpful.“We made it clear that they were not helpful and that we weren’t in a position of course to put them right.”Some business leaders have also complained that leaks around the budget affected economic confidence.Michael Summersgill, the chief executive of the investment broker AJ Bell, said on Thursday that rumours around the budget had prompted some customers to take money out of their retirement savings.“Uncertainty in the lead-up to the budget resulted in heightened pension withdrawals as customers approaching retirement responded to the extensive speculation,” he said.“Without a long-term commitment to not changing the tax-free cash entitlement or the deferral of income tax on pension contributions, rumours will inevitably surface ahead of every UK budget.”