Head of OBR resigns after Budget day publishing error

Summary

The chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, Richard Hughes, resigns after the organisation published details of the Budget before the chancellor delivered it in the Commons last week - read his resignation letter here
The OBR earlier said it was not an intentional leak, or the work of a hostile actor, and revealed the document was accessible online via a "predictable" URL
A Treasury minister calls it a "very serious breach of highly sensitive information"
Over a frantic 40 minutes last Wednesday, journalists and MPs were effectively reading the Budget before Reeves had stood up - here's what happened on the day
Meanwhile, the prime minister insists the chancellor did not mislead the public before the Budget
Rachel Reeves has been accused of giving an overly pessimistic impression of the UK economic picture in a speech on 4 November - our political editor Chris Mason says, on one specific point, the chancellor was misleading

Live Reporting

Edited by Emily Atkinson and Jamie Whitehead, with reporting from political correspondent Harry Farley

'We have to confront the reality that our welfare state is trapping people'published at 06:54 GMT 1 December

Image source, Reuters
Image caption,
Starmer at a community centre in Rugby, Warwickshire, last week
The prime minister will focus on welfare reform when he speaks in London later today.
His speech comes after the government was, earlier this year, forced to U-turn on its plans to narrow eligibility for Personal Independent Payments (PIP), following a backbench rebellion.
"We have to confront the reality that our welfare state is trapping people, not just in poverty, but out of work," he will say. "Young people especially. And that is a poverty of ambition."
He will argue reforms are not aimed at making him "look somehow politically 'tough"', but at reversing low productivity.
"And so while we will invest in apprenticeships and make sure every young person without a job has a guaranteed offer of training or work, we must also reform the welfare state itself - that is what renewal demands."
The PM will also highlight the scrapping of the two-child limit - forecast to take 450,000 children out of relative poverty in five years' time - which was announced by Rachel Reeves last week.
And he will say "economic growth is beating the forecasts" but the government must go "further and faster" to encourage it.
He will promise to cut "unnecessary red tape" in infrastructure, after a report found the UK had become the most expensive place in the world to build nuclear power.
Starmer speech to focus on welfare reform - and backing Reevespublished at 06:48 GMT 1 December
Nathan Williams
Live page editor

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage, ahead of a speech by the prime minister later this morning.
Keir Starmer will warn that benefits are "trapping" people in poverty, while stressing the need for welfare state "reform".
The PM will also back Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who has denied that she misled the public about the state of the UK's finances in the run-up to the Budget. The Conservatives have called on her to resign.
Stay with us as we take you through the build-up to the speech - including hearing from Darren Jones, chief secretary to the PM, who's speaking to the BBC this morning.