Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to a stimulating and interesting debate on both parts of the Bill, although noble Lords focused more on Part 1 than Part 2. The debate has focused on the role of institutions and the part that they can play in ensuring transparency and accountability in the public finances. This is clearly a matter of much importance at the current time. At the beginning of the debate I explained the Government’s broader plans to reform the fiscal framework, and the establishment of the Office for Budget Responsibility is the most substantial aspect of this reform. For the first time, we are introducing independent and impartial scrutiny into the official forecast. I should start by welcoming the confirmation by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, that the Opposition welcome the creation of the OBR, which was confirmed by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, just now. The only substantial note among those who have spoken this afternoon questioning the purpose of change has come from the noble Lord, Lord Barnett. However, I think that the reason for change was very clearly set out in different ways both by my noble friend Lord Newby, who quoted from ministerial memoirs from the former Government, and by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, who made it quite clear—he referred to wishful thinking in the past—why, in his words, this is an idea whose time has come. I completely agree with that. I should as a rider say that I was not in what I said questioning in any way the work of Treasury officials. I would like to think that the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, recognises that. What I was questioning was precisely the way in which forecasts were put together—whether it was by way of wishful thinking or whether it was something more sinister in the past. That is precisely why I think that the overwhelming majority of speakers this afternoon have confirmed that the OBR’s time has indeed come. I shall come back to the point about independence.