Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Desai and Lord Peston

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Grand Committee

[Lord Peston]

Perhaps I may indicate one thought that has occurred to me, which the Minister might like to reflect on. It follows on from what my noble friend Lord Eatwell said: namely, that there is an enormous benefit to be gained if these people have been scrutinised. I do not believe that in practice it would occur very often, if at all, that the names brought forward were rejected, but a committee—which, one hopes, did not operate politically, such as the Treasury Select Committee; certainly the Economic Affairs of your Lordships’ House has never done so—might say, “We approve of these people; they’re just the people we need to help safeguard the independence”, which my noble friend Lord Eatwell has emphasised in this context and before. It is worth reflecting on whether that would be helpful in a body that is very different from any body that I can think of that has been set up in my time to consider economic policy-making.

There is an old adage, “Never do anything for the first time”, but that is what this body is doing, whether we think that that is good or bad. I would have thought that the Minister might like to reflect at least a little on the point that there would be positive benefits from going down the path that my noble friend suggests.

[Lord Desai]

I am sorry, my Lords, I did not speak in the Second Reading debate or on Monday. The point here is about trust. The Government have set up an institution that in its early days suffered from a bit of a problem of trust. I think that that was an accident, not the fault of the OBR itself. Whatever the Government can do to establish trust in the body would help them enormously. As my noble friend Lord Peston said, this is an innovation, a very good one, and perhaps it would strengthen it to do something, as my noble friend Lord Eatwell has suggested, to say that this is not like any other public sector body but is vital to the conduct of economic policy by the Government and to the perception of that policy. If the Minister can do something to assuage the trust deficit that we have here, it would be helpful.