U.K. Confirms Former BOE Official Miles to Join Budget Watchdog
U.K. Confirms Former BOE Official Miles to Join Budget Watchdog
(Bloomberg) -- Sign up for the New Economy Daily newsletter, follow us @economics and subscribe to our podcast.
The U.K. Treasury has appointed David Miles, a former Morgan Stanley economist and Bank of England rate-setter, to the government’s independent budget watchdog.
Miles, who served on the BOE’s monetary policy committee from 2009 to 2015, will take over from Charles Bean, whose five-year term ends on Jan.1. The news confirms a report by Bloomberg on Thursday.
The OBR draws up the economic forecasts as well as borrowing and debt projections for the budget. The independent body was set up in 2010 to stop the Treasury fiddling the figures for political purpose. Its forecasts have in the past forced finance ministers into uncomfortable decisions or given them unexpected spending headroom.
At the October budget, the new forecasts gave Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak 38 billion pounds ($50 billion) a year of extra spending, more than twice what he raised in March by increasing the corporate tax rate from 19% to 25%.
Miles, a professor of economics at Imperial College London, will be in charge of the economic forecast with his colleague Andy King overseeing the fiscal implications. Both report into OBR chairman Richard Hughes.
His nomination by the Treasury is subject to approval by the Treasury Select committee of lawmakers. The hearing will be in “the coming weeks.”
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.