Sir Mel Stride has called for Chancellor Rachel Reeves to resign, following the departure of OBR Chairman Richard Hughes.

Speaking to GB News, the Shadow Chancellor declared Ms Reeves’s position is “untenable” and demanded an inquiry into her alleged “market manipulation”.

The Chancellor’s Budget last week has continued to spark controversy as Mr Hughes handed in his resignation following the accidental leak by the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused Ms Reeves of using the ex-OBR chief as a “human shield”, demanding she resign.

Backing his boss’s calls, Mr Stride told GB News: “The Chancellor should resign. Richard Hughes’s departure, one can understand in terms of the serious errors that were made at the OBR.

“But nonetheless, I think there’s more than circumstantial evidence that the relationship between him and Rachel Reeves and the lack of support from the Chancellor for him at this particular moment has been part of the story of him leaving his position.”

Accusing the Chancellor of a “complete misrepresentation” of public finances, he added: “The real story here is that, of course, the Chancellor called that press conference on the fourth of November, stood up and told the public that there was a huge, great black hole in the public finances.

“And we now know, thanks to Richard Hughes and the information that he brought forward into the public domain on Friday, that that simply was not true. In fact, the previous forecast that the OBR provided on the 31st of October had shown that actually she was in a surplus against her fiscal target, so it was a complete misrepresentation of the true position and also divulging various elements of market sensitive information in a way that should not have happened.”

Mr Stride stated: “Given that the conversations and interactions between the OBR and the Treasury and others should be strictly confidential, I think the Chancellor’s position herself here is now untenable.”

Questioned by host Ellie Costello on whether he believes Ms Reeves has “broken ministerial code”, the Shadow Chancellor told the People’s Channel: “But I have written to the Financial Conduct Authority on this whole issue of market abuse and market manipulation, because we are looking at a situation where, on the face of it, it appears that the Chancellor has stood up and misrepresented the situation regarding the public finances that is dealing in the area of market sensitive information.”

He added: “And I think there should now be an inquiry and an investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority into what has happened here.”

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Pressed by Ellie on whether the OBR is still “fit for purpose” following two alleged leaks, Mr Stride explained: “Clearly, the fact that this happened and as you rightly say, it appears that there was possibly a leak back in the time of the spring statement in March and maybe even before that, that’s now being looked into, is totally and utterly unacceptable.

“It’s the most serious breach with the OBR since it was formed 15 years ago, but I don’t think that should detract from the importance of the OBR itself.”

Defending the OBR, he added: “They are there to mark the Chancellor’s homework, they are there to make those forecasts on an independent basis, and it’s important that they act independently and that it’s not the Treasury that fulfils that function.

“Because markets have to have confidence in the information and the assessments that currently the OBR makes, and that they are serious and solid assessments of our economic performance, not tainted by political judgment or the objectives of the Treasury at that particular time.

“So I think the OBR itself is a really important institution and we need to see it strong and independent.”

Taking aim at Ms Reeves’s decisions made in the Budget last week, Mr Stride concluded: “The position with the public finances is very weak and much weaker than it should have been, because you’ve had a Government that’s come in having said they wouldn’t put up taxes, but slapped lots of taxes, particularly on businesses, that has killed growth.

“And all the forecasts that we’ve had from the OBR and the recent report are that growth in subsequent years is going to be down on where they thought it was going to be back in the spring. They talked down the economy with this fictitious £22billion black hole that extinguished the animal spirits in the economy, they borrowed and spent a lot of money, which has stoked inflation. That’s kept interest rates higher for longer.”

He added: “They’re mounting up lots of debt, and the servicing costs on that debt are now running at £100billion, twice what we spend on defence. And what we’ve seen in this latest Budget is actually taking a lot of money now from hard working people by way of extra tax and spending it on welfare.

“And those are the wrong priorities. They’re not going to be good for the economic health or the wellbeing of people up and down the country, I’m afraid.”

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