Statistics and Registration Service Bill

If my right hon. Friend examines the detailed proposals, he will see that the principal part of the system is not about the publication of data, which he is talking about, but the assessment and standards relating to that publication. He is right to point out that this is indeed the next step in the Chancellor’s reforms of the machinery of economic governance—[Interruption.] If I can finish my sentence, I shall add that the new system is based on the approach adopted by the Government towards the independence of the Bank of England, the setting up of the Competition Commission and the Financial Services Authority—all moves in which formal devolution of ministerial power was accorded to credible, independent institutions with a clear remit set by Parliament and the Government. That is very much the approach that we are adopting in the Bill.