Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Higgins and Lord Desai

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Grand Committee

[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.

[Lord Higgins]

My Lords, I agree with the point that has just been made. It is true, as the Minister has said, that we are breaking new ground here, but the other bodies to which he referred are very different from this one, which is unique. I would have thought that the case for having the whole board approved by the Treasury Select Committee gave greater weight to the committee’s authority and would certainly make the committee, which is going to be dealing with this whole issue a great deal, more acceptable to it in future proceedings. I am not clear why the Minister objects to adding this.