Why Healey will miss a £25bn bonus from better productivity 

The UK economy’s productivity picture has radically changed in the last year. Maurício Alencar considers what this could mean for John Healey. For weeks leading up to last year s Budget, reports dripping from so-called Treasury sources insisted it was not Rachel Reeves’ fault that tax hikes worth billions of pounds were on the horizon. The blame lay with the Office for Budget Responsibility, as reports reflecting the then-Chancellor s views said, for its brutal decision to downgrade trend productivity forecasts.  It was a problematic few weeks of briefing wars for Reeves. The Chancellor even admitted that forecasts privately issued by the small but powerful government body were “gloomy”, weeks before figures were put – or inadvertently leaked – to the public. The OBR’s downgrades were the main justification for the Chancellor’s unpopular decisions even as former OBR chiefs Sir Charlie Bean and Andy King told City AM that Reeves should have seen the heavy downgrade coming a mile a