Victoria Derbyshire couldn’t hide her frustration as she clashed with a senior Tory frontbencher in the wake of the Budget.
The BBC Newsnight presenter repeatedly asked shadow Treasury minister Nigel Huddleston why the last government withheld some of its spending plans from the Office for Budget Responsibility.
It came after the OBR confirmed the Conservatives had not told it about £9.5 billion worth of spending it was planning.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves yesterday unveiled plans to increase taxes by £40bn as she tried to plug the £22bn “black hole” in the public finances she claims the last Tory government left behind.
Derbyshire asked Huddleston: “Why did you keep the OBR in the dark? And I’m going to quote those words - they said the Conservative government hadn’t shared with them about the large pressures on government spending totalling £9.5bn and the ‘unusual extent of spending commitments’.
“It said: ‘Had this information been made available, we would have reached a materially different judgement’ about your government’s spending. ‘Had this information been made available’. You didn’t make it available.”
Huddleston insisted there had been “a public announcement” that the government would compensate those affected by the infected blood scandal.
He added: “Remember, this is in the context of government spending of £1.2 trillion.”
Closing her eyes and turning her face to the ceiling, Derbyshire told him: “It’s not the point. No no no.”
Huddleston then spoke over her to say: “They’re trying to make an argument today that all of the challenge is because of what is, in the whole scale of things, a relatively small amount, that every single government and every single Budget deals with.”
But Derbyshire said: “You are ignoring the words of the OBR today. You kept information from them. You did not make certain information available to them. Why?”
Huddleston replied: “Government can’t work like that. We made an announcement saying we would provide compensation for blood with a clear intention to make sure at future fiscal events that that is accounted for.”
The presenter then asked him: “Who do you think people watching will believe? The independent fiscal watchdog, the OBR, or the Conservative government who had a crushing defeat in July?”
The MP replied: “I think in the context of the Budget today, people will believe us over Labour because they have lied to the British public.”