Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

My Lords, perhaps I may add to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. The OBR will produce two forecasts a year. Between them, data will emerge, conditions will change and all kinds of things could happen in the world at large. The Treasury will need to take a view during that period of whether or not the events that are unfolding are consistent with the forecasts. The Treasury will want to prepare for future announcements of one kind or another. It is hugely important that it retains the capacity to monitor what is happening to the economy in the mean time, to make an assessment of whether unfolding events are consistent with the OBR’s previous forecast and to prepare itself for the work that continually goes on. One of my worries throughout the establishment of the OBR has been that some capacity within the Treasury will inevitably be required if the Treasury is to continue to do the job that it does month by month. The Treasury has to prepare Ministers for speeches, answering questions and making observations on whether or not the economy is evolving in the way that it thought. The idea that there should be no capacity left in the Treasury to make this kind of analysis is frankly unrealistic.