Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

My Lords, perhaps I may make an analogy which is completely separate from that that we have been discussing. The SAS is now one of the finest fighting forces in the world, frequently in much demand from the United States Army to work in conjunction with it. That organisation was founded in the desert in 1942 and people were asked to volunteer to join it. If they had been asked to resign all relationship with their previous regiment, I am not at all sure that they would have joined at that stage; nor that we would have had evolving out of 70 years of history the remarkable fighting force that we have.