MPs raise concerns about leak of hike in living wage in last budget

theguardian.com:

MPs have expressed “deep concern” over the leaking of price-sensitive information before Rishi Sunak’s budget last year and warned the chancellor his package of measures risked adding to Britain’s already surging inflation rate.

The influential all-party Treasury committee called for Sunak to investigate how details of a planned increase in the national living wage to £9.50 an hour were disclosed in the runup to the budget in late October.

“We are deeply concerned that the rate of the national living wage was disclosed to ITV in an unauthorised fashion prior to the budget, and we agree with the Treasury that this could have caused confusion in the market as to whether the information was accurate,” the MPs said.

“Given the potential opportunity for disruption that this unauthorised leak could have caused, the government should investigate how this policy came to be leaked prior to the budget and should publicise its findings.”

Tom Scholar, the permanent secretary to the Treasury, wrote to the committee saying he did not believe the wage hike announcement for workers aged over 25 constituted market-sensitive information because it was an “economy-wide measure”.

However, the committee said it believed the announcement could be seen as market sensitive because it affected certain companies with high numbers of low-paid workers compared with other businesses.

Publishing its report on Sunak’s combined budget and spending review, the MPs said the chancellor’s decisions – including the planned increase in national insurance contributions – would add to inflationary pressure and make it harder to cut taxes before the next election.

Mel Stride, the committee’s chairman, said: “With inflation rising significantly, concerns about pressure