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Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

I had not intended to go down this interesting byway, but notwithstanding the singlehanded contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Myners, to a considerable increase in the number of Written Questions, I am very happy to give him the figures, although I do not have them to hand. The number of Questions for Written Answer that the Treasury has had to deal with in the past six months has been significantly above the figure that previous Ministers in the Treasury—principally the noble Lord himself—have had to face. Nevertheless, our record on answering Questions on time has improved dramatically, and I am very happy to supply the noble Lord with the data. I am conscious that we are scheduled to go on for only another 35 minutes, so perhaps we should go back to the Bill. However, with regard to answering Treasury Questions, I am happy to discuss the relative performance of this Parliament compared with the previous one if it would interest the noble Lord, although I shall do so on another occasion. We want plenty of scrutiny in this House. Clauses 1(4), 1(6), 2(3) and 8(2)(b) all confirm that the OBR’s reports will be presented to the whole of Parliament, not just to another place. I will return specifically to the question of committee scrutiny, but it is important that the Economic Affairs Committee of your Lordships’ House should have, and will have, responsibility for whatever it thinks appropriate in considering economic and fiscal issues, including those that relate to the OBR. However, I do not believe that any of the amendments in this group are necessary to achieve that. When it comes to the relatively narrow but important point on formal approval of the charter, perhaps this will not surprise noble Lords, but I very much lean towards the argument of my noble friend Lady Noakes, because, critically, the charter contains the fiscal mandate, which I believe should be properly considered in another place, rather than here.