Office for Budget Responsibility

Lord Barnett Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Barnett]

My Lords, I have not had the opportunity to go through as much of the detail as my noble friend Lord Eatwell, who I thought did very well and exposed so much of this so-called “independent” report. We were told just now in an answer by the Minister that the Chancellor saw some figures on 28 May, so the so-called “independent” OBR was consulting the Treasury all along. Is that true? Was it really being consulted all along, or is it truly independent—any more independent than all the other “independent” forecasts we get from all kinds of sources?

More important is the accusation by the Chancellor that the figures previously issued in the name of Treasury officials, not by the former Chancellor, were dishonest—that they were fiddled by Ministers and yet Treasury officials allowed them to go out in their name. Is that not rather insulting of officials?

More seriously, how many Treasury officials who were doing this job before are still there? Or are they now working for the OBR? Perhaps the Minister will tell us. He also referred to this five-year forecast. Most people, including myself, would be reluctant to forecast a few months ahead, let alone five years. Will he reassure us that that forecast will not be amended every few months by the independent OBR?

More importantly, will he confirm what the assumptions were for unemployment if the Chancellor’s deficit reduction programme, to be announced in the Budget, is anything like the rhetoric we hear at the moment?

[Lord Sassoon]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Barnett. He enables me to confirm the nature of the independence of the OBR. To call into question the independence of Sir Alan Budd and his committee—as he went on to say, that is not the most important thing, so perhaps I should pass over it and move on.

I also rather resent, on behalf of the Treasury officials with whom I work every day, the thought either that they were in some way party to some conspiracy before or that they are not capable of doing work, then or now, of the highest quality. The difference now is that the OBR has set out critical fan charts to show central forecasts and probability distributions around those forecasts. Noble Lords may tut-tut, but this is a practice that has been adopted by the Bank of England in its forecasts for many years.