George Osborne has been accused of the “most serious breach ever” of the parliamentary select committee system after he refused to rule out a future VAT rise a day before David Cameron announced such a pledge.
Ed Miliband appeared to be caught by surprise when the Prime Minister vowed the Conservatives would not hike the tax following a direct challenge in the Commons by the Labour leader.
Although the Chancellor ducked five opportunities to forswear a VAT rise 24 hours earlier at the Treasury Select Committee, business minister Matthew Hancock revealed the decision had already been taken by the leadership.
Labour’s John Mann accused Mr Osborne of misleading the committee in the “most serious breach of the select committee system ever” and claimed his “integrity is now in question”.
The Bassetlaw MP told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Mr Hancock “let the cat out of the bag by showing that this was pre-set, that holds Parliament into contempt”.
He said: “If the governor of the Bank of England or the financial regulator did that in front of our committee, I think they would have to resign because we are there in order to hold whoever is the government to account on a cross-party basis on what they are saying and what the facts are.
“For the Chancellor of the Exchequer to mislead the committee and then for it to be a political set-up the next day, what it does is it brings into disrepute the whole select committee system,” he added.
On Tuesday, Mr Osborne told the committee: “We don’t need to increase VAT. I couldn’t be clearer. We do not need to increase VAT because our plans involve saving money on the welfare budget and government departments.”
But the Chancellor declined at the time to give a “cast-iron guarantee” to match Labour’s pledge not to increase VAT over the five years of the next parliament.
Mr Hancock said he knew about the VAT announcement “earlier this week”.
Pressed on BBC2’s Newsnight whether he knew on Monday or Tuesday he said: “One of them, it all blends into one sometimes.”
Asked about Mr Osborne’s appearance at the Treasury Select Committee, he said: “There was obviously a decision not to announce a new policy in that forum but instead to announce it at Prime Minister’s Questions.”
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