A senior MP branded the IMF ‘infuriating’, just weeks after it waded into UK politics by advising Jeremy Hunt not to cut taxes
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was last night accused of dodging scrutiny as it sits on its ‘perch in Washington’ to criticise the UK.
A senior MP who chairs the Treasury select committee branded it ‘infuriating’, just weeks after the IMF waded into UK politics by advising Chancellor Jeremy Hunt not to cut taxes in the Budget next month and increase public spending.
The Washington-based fund also intervened after the mini-Budget in 2022.
Critics contend its gloomy forecasting record on the UK is lamentable.
Against this backdrop, the Treasury committee invited the IMF and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to give evidence to MPs ahead of the Budget. Both refused.
But while Conservative MP Harriet Baldwin, who chairs the committee, said that she was ‘heartened by the positive intent and engagement shown by the OECD during our discussions’, she added: ‘The IMF’s outright refusal to let us scrutinise their forecasts of the UK economy in public is infuriating.’
‘Yet they continue to utter public pronouncements about the UK from their perch in Washington. As the IMF is a public body partly funded by the UK as a shareholder, I find this incredible.’
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