Rachel Reeves must resign following the leaking of an OBR forecast prior to the autumn budget last week, the SNP has demanded.
The head of the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR), Richard Hughes, stepped down on Monday following the release of a report into the accidental publication of budget details.
He called the breach a "technical but serious error", noting: “It is in the best interest of the OBR for me to resign as its Chair and take full responsibility for the shortcomings identified in the report.”
Now, the SNP have called on the Chancellor to resign over claims she misled the public in stating there was a budgetary black hole, when in reality there was a £4bn surplus.
In a statement on Monday evening, SNP Westminster Depute Leader Pete Wishart MP said Reeves must stand down.
He noted: “The head of the OBR has taken responsibility, and resigned, to restore confidence after the budget leak.
“The head of the BBC took responsibility and resigned. Why is Rachel Reeves refusing to do the same?"
First Minister John Swinney made similar claims on Monday, telling the BBC: “Rachel Reeves has quite clearly misled the public and the financial markets.
"She had information from the Office for Budget Responsibility that indicated that the financial challenges that she faced were not as great as she presented them to be.”
He added: "I think Rachel Reeves has got to face the consequences of misleading the public in the way that she has."
Reeves has defended her comments in recent days, arguing that the £4bn surplus was not enough to deliver the budget, hence the need to make further cuts and tax rises.
She told Sky News: “£4bn of headroom would not have been enough, and it would not give the Bank of England space to continue to cut interest rates."
"In the context of a downgrade in our productivity, which cost £16bn, I needed to increase taxes, and I was honest and frank about that in the speech that I gave at the beginning of November."
Speaking on Times Radio earlier on Monday, Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander said Hughes’ resignation was ‘inevitable’.
“It was a quite unprecedented, extraordinary leak of the budget in its totality, effectively, about half an hour before the Chancellor was on her feet and speaking at the dispatch box.” he remarked.
“But we also saw… a deeply, deeply troubling set of findings today suggesting that the vulnerability that had led to this leak actually had been pre-existing and had been there for some time. So I think it was probably inevitable.”
