Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [Lords]

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The way to provide that guarantee and certainty is to pass the Bill before us today, which sets up the Office for Budget Responsibility—but does so, critically, as an independent organisation that will make its own forecasts. In so doing, it will contribute to being independent of Governments and provide credible official forecasts for the first time in our country. That will give us the certainty we need. I will come on to explain later how we ended up needing official forecasts to be done independently, referring to the problems that had arose prior to this Parliament.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The Government have a serious political difficulty, to which the Justice Secretary referred over the weekend, giving rise to a considerable amount of publicity. All over the country, local authorities are loading cuts on to front-line services, yet we read today that scores of local authority executives earn more than the Prime Minister. What is the Minister’s message to local authorities? Will she insist that they deliver real efficiency savings to avoid these cuts in front-line services, which are so politically damaging?

[Justine Greening]

rose—