{"id":144590,"date":"2025-04-08T16:42:42","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T15:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/?post_type=parliament&#038;p=144590"},"modified":"2025-04-08T16:42:44","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T15:42:44","slug":"keir-starmer-criticises-budget-watchdog-over-welfare-assessment","status":"publish","type":"parliament","link":"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/parliament\/keir-starmer-criticises-budget-watchdog-over-welfare-assessment\/","title":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer criticises budget watchdog over welfare assessment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/player.target-video.com\/player\/build\/targetvideo.min.js\"><\/script> <div id=\"TargetVideo_44126791\" style=\"width:16;height:9;\" > <\/div> <script type=\"text\/javascript\"> $bp(\"TargetVideo_44126791\", {\"video\":\"2086330\",\"width\":\"16\",\"height\":\"9\",\"id\":\"24436\"}); <\/script>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Keir Starmer has criticised the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for failing to assess the potential economic impact of the government\u2019s welfare reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The prime minister said the watchdog&#8217;s economic forecast had not \u201cpriced in\u201d the measures set out in the government\u2019s Pathways to Work Green Paper, which was published alongside the Spring Statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He told the liaison committee on Tuesday afternoon: \u201cOn the impact assessments, it is significant to my mind that the ability of any policy or legislation to change any behaviour at all is not priced in, in other words the OBR has scored nothing against any change here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe assumption is not a single person changes their behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI personally struggle with that way of looking at it because I do think that these measures will make a material difference and they need to make a material difference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Politics.co.uk is the UK\u2019s leading digital-only political website. <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/subscribe\/\"><i>Subscribe to our daily newsletter<\/i><\/a><i> for all the latest news and analysis.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Keir Starmer has criticised the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for failing to assess the potential economic impact of the government\u2019s welfare reforms. The prime minister said the watchdog&#8217;s economic forecast had not \u201cpriced in\u201d the measures set out in the government\u2019s Pathways to Work Green Paper, which was published alongside the Spring Statement. He&#8230;  <a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/parliament\/keir-starmer-criticises-budget-watchdog-over-welfare-assessment\/\" title=\"Read Keir Starmer criticises budget watchdog over welfare assessment\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":183,"featured_media":144591,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[868],"tags":[5946],"parliament-briefing":[6875],"sign-up":[],"mp":[],"event":[],"class_list":["post-144590","parliament","type-parliament","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-video","tag-keir-starmer-2","parliament-briefing-from-the-committee-corridor"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Keir Starmer criticises budget watchdog over welfare assessment - Politics.co.uk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politics.co.uk\/parliament\/keir-starmer-criticises-budget-watchdog-over-welfare-assessment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Keir Starmer criticises budget watchdog over welfare assessment - Politics.co.uk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Keir Starmer has criticised the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for failing to assess the potential economic impact of the government\u2019s welfare reforms. The prime minister said the watchdog&#8217;s economic forecast had not \u201cpriced in\u201d the measures set out in the government\u2019s Pathways to Work Green Paper, which was published alongside the Spring Statement. He... 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