UK Parliament / Open data

Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I am grateful to the Financial Secretary, who has been extraordinarily generous in giving way this afternoon, for letting me intervene. He and others have already underlined the importance of the independence of national statistics if they are to maintain the confidence of the nation. Is it not also important that there should be consistency? For instance, coroners are entirely free to determine at their own will what counts as a drug-related death. If each coroner around the country records a death as drug-related for different reasons against different criteria, however, the statistics gathered on the back of such judgments will mean absolutely nothing. Will there not still be a role for the Government and Ministers to make sure that there is some consistency in how such things are measured?
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
455 c28 
Session
2006-07
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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