Finance (No. 3) Bill
Debate between Luke Graham and Chuka UmunnaMonday 19th November 2018
(5 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Finance Act 2019 View all Finance Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 19 November 2018 - (19 Nov 2018)
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman talks about statistics. Does he not agree with me that many Members—this is shared across the House—use statistics as a drunk man uses a lamppost: for support, rather than illumination? Will he join me in trying to strengthen the Office for Budget Responsibility, so it can have more resources and ensure the statistics presented to the House are objectively verified?
Chuka Umunna
I have to say that when I gave way to the hon. Gentleman I did not imagine I would actually end up agreeing with what he said. He pre-empts my final point, which is that I understand the general worry about the accuracy of official forecasts. The bottom line is that we are never going to get forecasts that are 100% accurate, but we have to work with a certain number of assumptions to make policy, as I am sure he will discover if he has the privilege of serving in government.
On the point he makes about the OBR, I was quite careful in how I drafted the amendment. Its powers and capacity from a resource point of view are circumscribed, but there is no reason why we should not change the statutory remit of the OBR. At the very least, for those who worry about the accuracy of forecasts, we could see whether the OBR would be prepared to do an evaluation on the methodology and the techniques it uses to produce the forecasts by the Treasury.