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If they really were cooking the books, shouldn't there be criminal charges?

6 replies

Redrocky · 30/07/2024 07:02

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6p24zpeg05o

For transparency, I'm idealistically very slightly left of centre. Really disliked the last lot, but never died in the wool Labour either.

If these stories are true, isn't that shocking...and criminal?

Rachel Reeves at the House of Commons despatch box

'Bean counters' get their revenge

Experts and officials look like they will get more of a hearing than under the last government.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6p24zpeg05o

OP posts:
Guavafish1 · 30/07/2024 07:11

The ORB are independent auditors of government spending. They are advisory body.

However, Liz Trust’s Conservative government wanted to abolish the OBR as I think they felt it stops economic growth.

The reason for the £20bn black hole is the last government didn’t give the full figures and they didn’t have to as it’s not legally required. So no criminal charges.

To be honest, it was the UK whole voted for Geogre Osbourne, Boris Johnson and Liz Trust. Are you really that surprised about their behaviour when it comes to public sector money?

TwoLeftSocksWithHoles · 30/07/2024 07:15

I suspect that the endless inquiries and third party auditors would just add to the 'black hole', there would be early retirements and payoffs and finger pointing, 'state security', and little would be achieved at the end of it all.

Look at the Post Office scandal to see how these things proceed...

At the current rate of spending, by the end of this month it (the Post Office)will have incurred an estimated £390 million on legal fees — well over double the compensation paid to victims.3 Mar 2024

unsync · 30/07/2024 07:47

It happens every time there's a change in government. It's not new, there's always some sort of black hole. The reaction to them just differs. Tories = cuts and austerity. Labour = increased taxes and borrowing.

MyOtherCarisAVauxhallZafira · 30/07/2024 07:54

Take it with a pinch of salt, there are things they are saying they didn't know about the justice system eg prison overcrowding, but they did, there has been a Tory scheme for early releases in place since last October/November which Keir starmer referenced and the comms sent out to all staff clearly stated it was because without we'd be out of prison spaces by the end of this summer. So if thousands of people in and around the MOJ and HMPPS knew and Starmer referenced the scheme, he knew. a
As former chief prosecutor and head of the CPS until 2020 I'm also pretty sure he still has plenty of contacts within the system. The rhetoric works for their plans to increase taxes. They just need to be honest if we want better services we have to pay for them, we didn't under the conservatives and that's why everything is fucked.

Boomer55 · 08/08/2024 17:23

Best taken with a pinch of salt. New governments always say this to avoid giving some groups more money.

prh47bridge · 09/08/2024 13:14

Agree this should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Part of what underlies this is that it has been nearly 3 years since the last spending review, and hence since departmental spending totals were set. A lot has happened since then, meaning that the allocations that looked generous in October 2021 now look much less so.

Just under half the black hole is because Labour has allocated an additional £9 billion to public sector pay. There would have been a hole there regardless of who was in power as the 2% budgeted for public sector pay rises was clearly inadequate, but it isn't clear that Labour needed to go as far as they have.

Another £6.4 billion is the cost of supporting asylum seekers. This is not included in the Home Office budget, where it should have been. Instead, the Tories funded it from the Treasury reserve, which is intended to cover unexpected and urgent demands on the public purse. Moving that into the Home Office budget whilst keeping the reserve at the same size means it adds to the black hole.

A further part of the black hole was due to the Tories announcing a number of new initiatives that were not included in departmental budgets. It seems all of these were going to be funded from the reserve.

The last government weren't cooking the books and some of the alleged black hole is entirely of Labour's own making, but the Tories did leave the new government a worse mess than they were expecting.

Both parties are at fault. The Tories who left a lot for Labour to clear up and weren't honest about the challenges faced, and Labour who knew broadly what these challenges were but kept quiet about them, saying nothing in their manifesto or in any of their pre-election statements. However, I can see no evidence that gets anywhere near proving that anyone committed a criminal offence.

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