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Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord but there is a consistency point here, because the issue of timing the forecast is qualified by, ““in particular””. The general role of Clause 6(1) is to provide, "““guidance … about how it should perform its duty under section 4””." Those duties under Clause 4 include economic forecasts. I repeat that I have no intention of trying to create some general economic assessment. My main point is: economic and fiscal policy are intimately and necessarily linked. I was trying to capture that linkage in my amendment. I am quite willing to believe that my amendments do not capture it successfully, but it is capturing that point that I am looking for. I hope that, when we return to this on Report, that point will be appreciated and that the Government will be able to reply in some positive way about their response to this particular argument. In the mean time, I formally beg leave to withdraw Amendment 1. Amendment 1 withdrawn. Amendment 2 Tabled by