The political flourishes in George Osborne’s spending review were impressive. But how is the Chancellor doing when it comes to meeting targets set during previous political performances? Today the Office for Budget responsibility said that the welfare cap, which the Chancellor announced in 2014 as a trap for Labour, would be breached in three successive years. The OBR document reads:
‘Our central forecast shows that the terms of the welfare cap are set to be breached in three successive years from 2016-17 to 2018-19, with the net effect of policy measures raising welfare cap spending in each of those years, and to well above the 2 per cent forecast margin in 2016-17 and 2017-18.
‘The terms of the cap are set to be observed by very small margins in 2019-20 and 2020-21, with spending above the cap but within the forecast margin and with the net effect of measures in those years reducing spending.’
So the Chancellor has ended up falling into a trap that he set for Labour. And, as John McDonnell tried to set out in the Commons today, he has also failed to meet his own targets that he set in the previous parliament for abolishing the deficit. But of course Osborne is able to get away with walking into his own traps, because politically they only trigger when a party already considered by voters to be spendthrift walks into them.
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