Fiscal Responsibility Bill

Thank you very much. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention; he shows good judgment. It is important that we have a credible system. We are not going to get into a full debate on this now, but our proposal for the establishment of an office of budget responsibility, whereby the powers to make such forecasts would be transferred to an independent body outside the Treasury, would address a number of issues, including the concern that political interference might drive some of the numbers produced by the Treasury. The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) was right to say earlier that forecasting was difficult. We are talking about two very big numbers here—expenditure and receipts—and getting them exactly right is not something that we can necessarily expect. However, the bias—by which I mean the tendency of the Treasury to look at this always from an optimistic point of view—is a concern. Certainly, the reports—which do not come from my party—that the Prime Minister has tried to interfere in this are really important.