Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2010 Grand Committee

[Lord Eatwell]

I have a couple of comments to make on the amendments. With respect to the engagement of my noble friend Lord Myners in the House, that was increased by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, from the other side, who kept him working hard.

On the remarks with respect to the charter, there is a good point. The Economic Affairs Committee of your Lordships’ House takes a long-run view on fiscal affairs, which is what you want to get into this charter. It is about the whole philosophy that the Government have talked about. In the examination of the Finance Bill by the sub-committee of the Economic Affairs Committee, there is tremendous expertise considering technical aspects of fiscal policy. To quote another example of involvement by your Lordships’ House, I had the privilege of serving on the pre-legislative committee on the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which was a committee of both Houses. It enormously improved the Bill before it got to the legislative stage and saved a lot of time in the House.

With respect to the charter, my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, have hit on an absolutely central and valid point. On the amendment referring to appointments, it might be a little cumbersome unless we put the two committees together. What if the two committees disagreed? It would all become rather messy, so I am rather agnostic on that. The key amendment is Amendment 35. My noble friends have spotted an obvious oversight in the drafting of Schedule 1. Of course, the OBR should provide evidence to the relevant committees of both Houses. I am referring to evidence that is within the terms of its remit as defined in the Bill. If it is independent, it should be shown to be such by providing evidence in that way. We ought to have the word “reasonable” here so that reasonable requests for attendance can be made. After all, the OBR is rather small, and it cannot be attending things all the time. Whether the drafting is appropriate, I am not sure, but it is an entirely sensible point that when necessary the OBR should appear before committees in your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee if I have acted improperly by rising after the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell. I tried before.

The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, and I at different stages in our lives were Treasury Ministers in different Administrations under different Prime Ministers. Both of us served for several years. Before that time, I had the privilege of serving as a Back-Bench Member on the Finance Bill when the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, was Chief Secretary. There is symmetry here with my first experience of the noble Lord as a tutor on the Finance Bill because he was extremely scathing about the first group of amendments that I tabled. My noble friend Lord Lawson of Blaby had to rescue me and explain that there was more to my amendments than the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, was suggesting. However, the reason why there is symmetry with this moment in the Grand Committee’s affairs is that the second time I moved amendments, which was the very next group, the noble Lord accepted them with enthusiasm, which was extremely good for a young pupil. We have just experienced everyone being mildly upset with my noble friend the Minister, but it is just possible that everything will be set right by what he has to say.

Two of my noble friends on this Grand Committee, as Conservative Peers, have taken opposite views of these amendments. Obviously there are things to be said on either side. I am going to extend the Minister the courtesy of listening to him, not least because that also seems to me one of the purposes of Grand Committee.

[Lord Sassoon]

Oh dear! Where do I start? I should say—because I genuinely mean it—that it is important to have full and appropriate scrutiny in your Lordships’ House of what the OBR is about. However, we must be careful. I do not want to be too hidebound by some inappropriately narrow interpretation of propriety and convention, but I think that we need to be careful about the balance between achieving full scrutiny here and not crossing inappropriate lines. We need to remember that there are a lot of important provisions in the Bill that will enable scrutiny by Parliament as a whole, so the Budget Responsibility Committee will indeed be available for Select Committee scrutiny. Its forecasts and very full analysis, which we have discussed at some length, will be laid directly before both Houses. On funding, there will be separate reporting of the OBR’s expenditure in the Treasury estimates presented to Parliament, and of course there have already been quite a number of Written Questions. The noble Lord, Lord Myners, does not always like the way that I reply to his Questions, but perhaps if he would cut them down from six to one a day, I could focus even more attention on providing him with a really good Answer. However, as he knows, Questions that he and other noble Lords send in which relate to the OBR’s responsibilities always get passed on to the OBR.