Member

The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, went on to suggest that it was a mistake to reduce the burden on small businesses, because of what was said by the OBR, which my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising was less than flattering about. I say in its defence that anyone who thinks that they can make predictions about what will happen to the economy, or about the effects of taxes in the current period of great global volatility, is on to a loser; it is extremely hard. Any Government who decide to outsource their strategic planning to other bodies, such as the OBR, will come a cropper. One of the extraordinary things about the Government’s whole approach has been to outsource power. I always think of the Labour Party as being against contracting out, but it has contracted out so much of the policy-making in the Treasury and is relying on the OBR. Who is the OBR? I am sure that it has very able people, but, as my noble friend pointed out, its track record is not exactly brilliant.