On Wednesday 30 October, Rachel Reeves introduces her first budget as Chancellor of the Exchequer – and the first budget of the new Labour government. The contents will be pored over by parliament, the media, research institutes, and global financial markets. But how exactly is the budget held to account and what role do these different actors play? Rather than scrutinising the new budget itself, this roundtable, hosted by the King’s Centre for British Democracy, will take a step back and consider wider questions of accountability.

• What part does the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) play? What influence does its forecasting have on the chancellor’s budget decisions? How does it affect political and market responses?

• How does parliament hold the budget to account? What tools and resources does it rely on? And how effective is its scrutiny?

• What do global financial markets look out for? What determines their responses? (How) do they affect other actors in the process, including the chancellor?

• How do research institutes, the media, and business and societal organisations contribute to accountability?

Speakers will come from perspectives including parliament, the global financial markets, the Office for Budget Responsibility, and research institutes. They include:

• Professor Christopher Hood CBE – Visiting Professor, Blavatnik School of Government, Emeritus Fellow, All Souls College, University of Oxford (co-author of ‘The Way the Money Goes: The Fiscal Constitution and Public Spending in the UK)
• Dr Isabel Stockton – Senior Research Economist, Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)
• Paul Greatbatch – Senior Visiting Fellow at King’s & former Partner & Portfolio Manager at Genesis Investment Management
• Professor Martin Weale (Chair) – Professor of Economics & former director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) & member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee 
• Sir Robert Chote – former chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)