The head of the Commons Treasury select committee has criticised the International Monetary Fund for failing to send anyone to appear before MPs to explain their economic forecasts for the UK.
Harriet Baldwin, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, has been calling on the fund’s officials to give evidence to the Commons since 2022. The Washington-based fund again refused the invitation this week.
“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,” Baldwin said.
The Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, a Paris-based body that represents developing economies, will send officials to appear before MPs, Baldwin said. “We will continue to work with [the OECD] to find a suitable time for a public session when schedules allow, to ensure proper democratic scrutiny of their work can be carried out.”
The IMF produces regular growth forecasts for the UK and an annual assessment of the British economy, known as the Article IV report, which will be published in the coming months. The fund last month warned Jeremy Hunt, chancellor, not to embark on more tax cuts and instead to shore up the public finances by reducing borrowing and finding new sources of tax revenue to pay for investment in public services.
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The IMF’s latest forecasts suggests Britain’s economy will be the second-worst performing in the G7 after Germany, with growth of 0.6 per cent this year. Projections for 2025 have been cut from 2 per cent to an expected 1.6 per cent.
The government’s relationship with the fund has been strained in recent years, with Treasury officials accusing the IMF of taking an overly pessimistic view of the UK economy. Kwasi Kwarteng, who was chancellor for 38 days in 2022, had a showdown with IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva in the aftermath of his tax-cutting mini-budget, which the fund criticised for helping to stoke inequality and push up inflation.
