Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

My Lords, it may be convenient also to consider Amendments 31 and 32. When I first looked at Clause 5(3), it seemed fairly straightforward. It states that if the Government’s policies are relevant to the OBR’s performance of its duties, the office should not look at any alternative policies; that is, it should not suddenly say, ““We want to look at the policies of the Labour Party as well as those of the coalition and make a comparison between the two””. That is what I understood it to say. The alternative proposed in one of the later amendments is rather more stringent than that, in that it effectively provides that the office should not look at any alternative policies at all, while the other amendment says that it should. So, in a sense, we have a choice. On balance, it is arguable that the Government, having reflected on this, came to the view that the OBR should not look at alternative policies, which might create a very confusing situation. Nevertheless, the subsection does seem to be unnecessarily restrictive. To my surprise, during a discussion in our previous Grand Committee, it turned out that the clause was intended to do something quite other than what it appears in simple terms to do, and we had a lengthy discussion about that. I still do not understand either what the amended interpretation was supposed to do or how it would do it. It would be helpful if the Minister could give us some idea of that now, or alternatively could consider the matter further. However, as it stands, the provision seems to be quite straightforward. I beg to move.