Treasury watchdog to ask Kwarteng to hand over growth forecasts

Tory chair Mel Stride says watchdog needs to hear how chancellor will boost growth, and suggests one option might be via immigration

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Kwasi Kwarteng will be called before parliament's Treasury watchdog and asked to hand over independent growth forecasts, as its chairman said there is not a very broad path" out of the current economic situation.

Mel Stride, a Conservative MP and chair of the Treasury committee, said Kwarteng was very, very unlikely to reverse" the 45bn of unfunded permanent tax cuts he announced last Friday, even though that is an option. The alternative, he said, was to act quickly to demonstrate to the markets that growth is realistic". The third option would be deep cuts to public spending, but that would be difficult given the current pressure of inflation, Stride said.