Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

My Lords, Amendment 25 is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Peston. Everything that I have heard so far this afternoon in these brief debates confirms to me why my noble friend Lord Peston and I have been right to wonder whether the huge expense of setting up the whole of the OBR is worth it. In particular, this amendment relates to the whole issue and is central to it. Indeed, the only person whom I have heard using the word ““audit”” in relation to this 150-page OBR report is the Chancellor. He is worth quoting. He said: "““I can confirm to the House that the OBR and its new chair, Robert Chote, have audited all the annually managed expenditure savings in today’s statement””.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/10/10; col. 949.]" My experience of auditing is now a bit out of date. Indeed, once you become a major partner in an audit firm, particularly a senior partner, you do not do a lot of actual auditing. Yet I did a little before that and I am bound to say that, when you give a clear audit certificate, there are no exceptions to it. How on earth can you give an audit certificate in relation to the OBR report? The fact is that it is just not possible to give a wholly unqualified audit certificate in relation to the OBR report. Perhaps I might give one or two examples of why it is impossible. The words ““uncertain”” and ““uncertainty”” go right through this report. Quite obviously, I am not blaming the OBR for that. If you are making, as it is, forecasts and assessments, there is bound to be uncertainty. It quite rightly admits that openly. It is not worth quoting all the examples when there are so many of them, but it refers, in the case of the central forecast, to significant uncertainty. Now if, in your report, you have a significant uncertainty that relates to the whole of the report, how on earth can the Chancellor say that everything that it has said is right and that it is all audited? Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, can tell me what it means. It is not clear to me. It is nowhere in the report, but it was at the heart of the Chancellor’s Statement introducing the comprehensive spending review. He said that the OBR had ““audited”” the annually managed expenditure savings. In fact, the OBR report refers very often to ““estimates””. I assume that it will be accepted that you cannot audit an estimate. Page 25 talks about an ““equal likelihood”” of growth being up or down—it could be all kinds of things. To say that there has been an audit is clearly nonsense. It is done solely to let the public know that this great new independent OBR is giving the Chancellor an overall audit. However, it has not given him an audit, because it cannot. The report states that it is ““difficult to draw conclusions””, but the Chancellor says that there has been an audit. The report says that there are ““expectations of interest rates””—I wish that the Chancellor would give me some examples of expectations that could be audited; I have never heard of one. I have not come across anybody who can give me a certain forecast of interest rates for tomorrow, let alone for five years, but those ““expectations”” are central to the forecast, which itself is significantly uncertain. I worry about Robert Chote, who has taken on the job of chair of the OBR. It is clear that he is an independently minded man who did a great job with the Institute for Fiscal Studies. However, he is allowing the Chancellor to use him. I am very sorry to see it. The Chancellor is using the respected independence of Robert Chote, and now the OBR, to say what a great job he is doing. That is very worrying, because there is a clear danger of the very perception of the independence of the OBR being undermined. I have quoted previously from the foreword to the OBR’s 150-page document, but it is worth doing so again. It states that, "““we have also drawn heavily on the help and expertise of officials across government””." It then lists the many government departments whose expertise has been used. Despite having asked Questions, I still have not heard from the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, or from anybody else how often, either formally or informally, the OBR has met the Chancellor and his colleagues. It is not unimportant to know these things. It is all part of the very perception of the OBR. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, will at least see that it is important to accept the amendment, because it goes to the heart of the independence of the OBR, which the Government want to have us believe. I find it hard to believe. I am sorry that the Government are using—I use the word carefully—Robert Chote and his colleagues to give the Chancellor the aura of being right, when it is clear that they cannot do so and are not doing so. I beg to move.