Statistics and Registration Service Bill

If the hon. Gentleman looks more closely at the Bill, and in particular at clause 11, he will see that it is not for the Chancellor to determine that, but for Ministers. I think that he will also find that he is talking about not official statistics but national statistics—a point that was made by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers). I shall address the detail of that a little later. In a decentralised statistical system—such as that which we have had in this country, which is well established and brings significant benefits—the most effective way to ensure both independence and the highest standards of integrity and quality is through independent setting of standards and independent assessment and reporting against those standards. That is precisely what the Bill would set up. We recognised from the outset that there was no question of reopening—or of somehow undermining—the devolution settlement in respect of the United Kingdom statistical system, but, following the decisions of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to be part of the new system, I am delighted that the Bill and the board’s remit cover the whole of the UK. The Treasury Committee report, and the evidence, was particularly exercised by that. That underlines the importance of what we are trying to accomplish. The new arrangements will help to deliver more coherence and more comparable statistics across the four countries in the future. Let me turn to the main details of the content of the Bill. At the heart of the Bill is the creation of an independent board, as set out in clause 1, whose core objective is to promote and safeguard quality, good practice and comprehensiveness in respect of official statistics. It will achieve that objective by performing three principal functions. The first of them is the statutory duty to monitor and report on areas of concern about quality, good practice and coverage of all official statistics across Government and Government arm’s-length bodies. It will also carry out that function by developing and promoting definitions, methodologies, classifications and standards for all official statistics. Secondly, as set out in clauses 10 to 17, the board is required to draw up a code of practice that will set professional standards for the production of national statistics and assess and approve all existing national statistics against those standards. It must also assess any additional statistics nominated by Ministers as potential national statistics, and publish the results in respect of those statistics for all—especially Members—to scrutinise. The third function that the board will perform to achieve its objective is to oversee the executive office of the national statistician, and we expect that office to discharge the board’s statistical production functions, which are currently undertaken by the Office for National Statistics.