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Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not offer any thoughts on sin. I know my limitations. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, for reminding us that the Treasury Select Committee has not asked for this. We need to get back to the substance of this. Yes, the OBR is a critically important entity. I would not characterise its role quite in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Peston, did, as being involved in economic policy-making, but we had that discussion two days ago. The OBR is critically important. It has a role which it has already begun by producing the official economic forecast. Because that is such an important role, we have as a Government, in agreement with the Treasury Select Committee, come forward with a most unusual role for the committee in respect of appointment of the executive members of the OBR. That in itself emphasises the special nature of this entity. We have recognised the special role of this body in the executive appointment process, but as to the non-execs, we should not get too excited and think that their role is very different. Are we really saying that the non-execs here have a completely different role to the non-execs on, say, the UK Statistics Authority board, which is another critically important part of the architecture? We risk over-engineering this. Another point that no one has made is that all public sector appointments are subject to an independent process and a series of safeguards. We must not forget that this is not part of a closed process. I believe that the overall construct is appropriate and we should not over-engineer it, particularly in a way that the Treasury Select Committee has not asked for. Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.