Mr. Paul Johnson:

It depends what the Deputy means by "oversee". It would be difficult to have an independent body making decisions about indexation, given what an important part of the tax and welfare system it is. To me, it is fundamentally political. However, as for having a body able to recommend on the basis of a particular remit or comment on the basis of a particular remit on the direction that policy is taking as a result of choices over indexation, there could be some benefit to that, again, certainly in increasing transparency and accountability. Because people suffer from money illusion, because indexation is a complex issue and because freezing something can look like no change when it can be a significant and real change, anything that increases transparency in that regard and in people's understanding of this would be extremely worthwhile. It could be that an independent body or person with a remit to do that would be of some value. As I said, though, those decisions feel to me to be too fundamentally political to farm out to technocrats, much as we technocrats would love to be in charge.