Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

It is clearly up to Robert Chote how he deploys his staff and what they do. Noble Lords obviously have not quite grasped what is meant by the independence of the OBR. It means that it is for the office to organise its life. I have not the faintest idea how it will do it, but I am sure that it will do it professionally and appropriately and that it will devote the necessary resources. In answer to another question, I was going to quote from page 3 of the OBR report to summarise the contacts that it has had in the build-up to producing its 150 pages, but the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, has already pointed to the key paragraph. The OBR made it clear that it would publish the list of contacts, which, as it promised, is coming out this week, shortly after the publication of the report. Nothing in the Bill stops the OBR publishing any minutes, reports or documents of any kind that it wants to. As well as focusing on the critical point that we should not require it to produce minutes for the sake of minutes when the output is forecasts rather than policy-making discussions, it is also important that we should recognise that if it wants to disclose anything about the way in which it goes about its business, it is entirely free to do so. It can draw on external expertise. It might have committees with external experts. There is nothing to preclude that. The core executive functions cannot be delegated, though, and the minimum output will be the two formal reports per year. However, it is already also producing a considerable amount of other information, and it will do so in future. It is for the office to be as transparent as it thinks is appropriate, consistent with its mandate. I do not for one minute take this to be a trivial point. I made the comparison with the MPC because it is critical. However, the amendments would require the OBR and the BRC to do a number of things that on the one hand are not required—consistent with the principles of accountability, transparency and independence—and, on the other, would put minor straitjackets on it that are not necessary because it should be free to publish whatever it sees fit to publish. This has been an interesting discussion. I am sympathetic to some of the objectives that are desired, but I am afraid that the amendments in this group do not add anything to the underlying purposes, which I understand are well intentioned. I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.