Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

The noble Lord sounds like the fellows in my college whose standard reaction to any proposal of mine is, ““We’ve always done it that way””. One peculiarity in the drafting of this Bill and of the charter is that everything is defined in terms of negatives. What we have in the charter is that the OBR should not analyse or comment on the particular merits of something. Why not say what you mean by using words such as, ““The OBR should analyse or comment only on the impacts of Government policy””, as the Minister has just said? Why is everything defined in terms of the negative? Why can we not say what we want to achieve in positive terms? The other problem with this is that I give the Government enormous credit for incorporating Clause 5(2) in the Bill. They deserve tremendous credit for doing that. However, subsection (1) weakens it, not necessarily as presented now, but it provides an opening for future Governments to change this guidance. That is what we do not want. It is unfortunate that this qualifying subsection is incorporated in Clause 5(2), which is tremendously to the Government’s credit. I shall take away the Minister’s comments and think about them. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 36 withdrawn. Clause 6 agreed. Clause 7 : Efficiency etc Amendment 37 Clause 7 : Efficiency etc Amendment 37 Moved by