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Fiscal Responsibility Bill

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way a second time. Let me take a specific example. It is well understood in the forecasting business that forecasts for six months or a year ahead can be relatively accurate, but as the forecast moves forward in years, the inaccuracy increases exponentially. Let us take the forecast for 2010-11. A year ago, when the Government made the forecast that growth would be 1 to 1.5 per cent., they were widely ridiculed, on the specific basis that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, for being biased in an over-optimistic way. We now discover that the consensus of forecasters is that growth this year will be 1 to 1.5 per cent. Does he admit that sometimes the Treasury gets it right?