Louise Haigh has hit out at Rachel Reeves’ “excessive deference” for the OBR.

The prominent backbencher and former transport secretary Louise Haigh, who is a frontrunner to become the deputy leader of the Labour Party, has taken aim at Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ “excessive deference” for the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and adhering to “arbitrary fiscal targets”.

Senior officials in the Labour Party are set to agree on a process for electing a new deputy leader after Angela Rayner resigned on Friday over an underpayment of stamp duty.

MPs on the left wing of the party are vying for support from at least 80 colleagues plus union activists in order to stem influence from Starmer.

Louise Haigh, who left the government last November after it emerged she had pled guilty to fr

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