Britain's Sunak picks ex-official Hughes to head budget watchdog

British finance minister Rishi Sunak said on Friday he had picked Richard Hughes, a former senior official at Britain's Treasury and the International Monetary Fund, as the next head of the country's influential budget watchdog. Hughes will replace Robert Chote, who will soon have served the maximum two five-year terms at the Office for Budget Responsibility, an independent body set up in 2010 to provide growth and borrowing forecasts for government budgets.

Hughes, a researcher at the Resolution Foundation think tank, was director of fiscal policy at Britain's Treasury until April 2019. He rejoined the Treasury in 2016 after heading the public finance division of the IMF's fiscal affairs department. "I am committed to upholding the OBR's well-deserved reputation for objective, transparent, and rigorous analysis of economic and fiscal developments," said Hughes, whose appointment is subject to approval from parliament's Treasury Committee.

Last month the OBR estimated that public borrowing would hit nearly 300 billion pounds ($379 billion) this financial year due to a surge in spending to counter the coronavirus crisis and a slump in tax revenue caused by a possible 13% economic slump. Hughes wrote in April that Britain's economy could shrink by between 10% and 20% this year, depending on whether the government's lockdown lasted for three or six months.

"The contraction in economic activity, coupled with the government's 400 billion pound policy response, puts extraordinary pressure on the public finances," he said. Falling borrowing costs meant the cost of servicing the debt would be lower than before the crisis but there were longer-term dangers if there was an unexpected spike in inflation or interest rates, he added.

Before December 2019's election, he criticised the Conservative Party and Labour for spending plans that looked set to break the fiscal rules that both set for themselves. ($1 = 0.7908 pounds)

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