The point is that the TaxPayers’ Alliance is a campaigning organisation. Our concern is not that it is included at all; the Minister is quite right in what she said about a range of sources and perspectives. But given that there is a lack of data, which the Minister has acknowledged, it seems a little odd that it is relied upon quite as much as it is. You do not need to make any assertions about some of the estimates that the TaxPayers’ Alliance is making to pursue the policy. It seems a bit strange that it is included.
My attention was drawn to this by what is on page 23 of the impact assessment. There is a little table that lists probable estimates of savings to the public sector. It just seems strange that—to take the Civil Service, as the first example—the high estimate of savings is £149,000, the low estimate is £1,500, and the most probable estimate is £11,500. Then, however, there are local authorities, for example, with a high estimate of £161,500, a low estimate of £91,000 and a most probable estimate of £161,500. It just is not clear how some of these figures have been reached. Are the Government treating the TaxPayers’ Alliance evidence with equal weight to a survey conducted by the LGA, for example? That would seem a strange thing to do without further inquiry or more critical analysis. Maybe this is a point to make to officials behind the Minister rather than the Minister herself, but it is not really what we would expect in this kind of document.