Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

My Lords, this discussion has been interesting because it confirms how much material the OBR has already published, in its economic and fiscal outlook and alongside it, which enables us to have a richer discussion than we might ever have had in the past. I am grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, is nodding. We have made considerable strides. I do not want to rake over old ground, as the noble Lord, Lord Myners, provokes me into doing, but we must keep coming back to the point that he makes by implication—namely, that we have employment and other forecasts in the 150-page economic and fiscal outlook document. We have many pieces of data that we did not have before and we will continue to have them in future. I hope that we all agree that there is a huge amount of additional transparency. We have fan charts and all sorts of other things that make clear the basis on which the forecasts have been produced. These forecasts are in no way made or influenced by Ministers or their political advisers. I think that we all agree that transparency is at the root of what we are trying to achieve. The amendments in this group seek to ensure that the OBR publishes the assumptions, economic analysis, data, methods and costings that it uses to compile its reports. We believe that that is absolutely achieved in the design of the structure that we have put forward. The OBR will have a statutory duty to act transparently. Chapter 4.8 of the charter states that, "““the OBR is to act openly, setting out with clarity the assumptions and judgements that underpin its work. It should proactively seek to make available its analysis””." Thus the general duty is in the Bill, which is backed up by the wording of the charter that expands on it. We now have evidence from last Monday’s document and the surrounding publications of the OBR about how it will do this in practice. Perhaps noble Lords have looked at the 20 Excel spreadsheets on the OBR’s website. I suggest that these give convenient access to the forecast data in a way that has not remotely been done before. In addition to those spreadsheets, over 20 separate documents with supplementary information have been published by the OBR since August. One of the tests of whether this meets the legitimate demands of the most sophisticated external forecasting bodies is what the Institute for Fiscal Studies noted earlier this year, which is that the OBR had by that stage already published more detail than ever before on the assumptions underlying its forecasts and on the impact that changes in those assumptions would have on revenues and spending. We have made a significant step change. A lot of the information is available in electronic form. The construct of the Bill plus the charter achieves what we all want from this. I turn to the specific points raised, particularly by my noble friend. The OBR has complete discretion over the model that it uses and what methods go around the modelling. In its recent economic and fiscal outlook report, the OBR had already made some adjustments to the methods that it used in June, so it is moving the way in which it has adopted the Treasury model. The Treasury will continue to retain economic and fiscal forecasting expertise because ultimately Ministers need to be supported by a forecasting capability. That will include the possibility of the Treasury continuing to use its own model, but the official forecasts will be those of the OBR.