Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, for his amendments. He referred again to the independence of the OBR but, as he knows, I have all along been concerned with both its relevance and independence. On relevance, there are dozens of truly independent forecasting bodies all over the country, including the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which used to be chaired by the present chairman of the OBR. The issue concerns itself with the expense of a body such as this when we have not only the forecasts of the independent outside bodies but the Treasury forecasts, the Bank of England forecasts and the OBR forecasts, most of which probably will be broadly in line with the current situation. We will never know—I have tried to find out on many different occasions—the Government’s view on what should happen when they have the forecasts. The Minister has found all kinds of different ways of not answering my questions about what the Government’s policy is and whether they agree with the Bank of England on keeping interest rates at 0.5 per cent, given the growing pressure—wrongly in many quarters—on the need to increase interest rates. He will not say whether he disagrees—I appreciate that he cannot disagree with or say anything different to what the Chancellor has said—but it would be nice if, at some time or another, he could answer the question of what the Government’s policy is, as opposed to accepting the forecasts, which he has done on numerous occasions. On the question of independence, I am worried by the constant references in the media to ““the Government’s in-house forecasting body, the OBR””. This does not lend itself very well to the independence that we would all like to see in the OBR. I am sure Robert Chote will do his best to ensure that it is truly independent but, if it is no more independent than the dozens of existing bodies, why do we need the OBR at all? That is the question I put to the noble Lord while thanking him for the amendments he has brought forward.