Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

There is an issue with the drafting of Clause 5 and I wonder whether we are trying to make subsection (3) work too hard for its living. I had assumed that it was there to make sure that the OBR did not get dragged into a political debate and would not be called upon by anyone to cost opposition policies—which, as we know, has become a bit of a habit over the past 25 years—or by a Select Committee to insist that it compared the outcome of the Government’s policies with that of another set of policies. That would inevitably draw the OBR into a political debate. I had assumed that that was the purpose of this subsection, and it may be working it too hard to say that it should also do the job suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, has captured the spirit of what a number of us have been concerned about.