Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

I would not express it in quite those terms. It is absolutely the intention and the expectation that the Government will adopt the forecast in all but the most extreme circumstances. In answer to the challenge of my noble friend Lord Newby, it would be wrong to start thinking about hypothetical contexts. It is right, and it is the intention of the construct of the Bill and the charter, as the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, explained it—and I agree with him that this is the appropriate construct—that ultimately the Minister directly accountable to the electorate and Parliament should retain the discretion not to use the OBR’s forecasts. That should be only a fall-back situation that needs to be legislated for. It is ultimately a decision that must be made by a Minister who is directly democratically accountable as part of the Government, as I hope we would agree, because it is so critical to underpinning economic policy. That does not change the fact that the OBR will be responsible for producing the official forecast or that the Government expect that there will be circumstances in which the Government disagree with the forecast. Nevertheless, it is entirely appropriate that that failsafe is allowed for and, in those circumstances, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will have to make the nature of the disagreement absolutely clear to Parliament. It will be completely transparent and the Chancellor should answer that question. That is exactly what we intend to have, but that does not mean that we are taking the OBR’s forecasts in any way lightly; it is a failsafe mechanism ensuring appropriate parliamentary and ministerial accountability. There was one thing on which I may have misunderstood or misheard the noble Lord. He may have said in passing that he believed that the construct made it necessary for the OBR to be involved in policy-making. I see the noble Lord indicating that he did not say that. Good. Our construct means that the OBR absolutely is not involved. Just to be clear, it should not be involved in policy-making, and that is linked to why, at the end of the day, the Chancellor must have the right in extreme circumstances to disagree.