OBR suggests Cameron’s benefits row with EU leaders is a bit pointless

What if David Cameron does win his fight – staged or otherwise – with European leaders to block benefits for EU migrants for four years? In terms of his pitch to the British public that voting to stay in the bloc is a good idea, this win would be very handy indeed. But would it actually materially change anything?

Today, in an evidence session to the Treasury Select Committee, Office for Budget Responsibility Stephen Nickell rather undermined the importance of this row between leaders when he ended up telling MPs that it wouldn’t make much of a difference to immigration from other EU countries to Britain anyway. He said:

‘I am prepared to say that any changes to benefit rules are unlikely to have a huge impact on migration flows. But to go further and start trying to analyse the actual consequences is not within our remit.’

The OBR has been quite handy of late: if it didn’t exist as an independent organisation, George Osborne would have found it much harder to explain how he’d found £27bn to make his life easier in the spending review.