Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I wish to make three basic points, the first of which is recognition of the importance of this subject. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Secondly, I welcome the move to independence. My main concern is that it has taken a long time. I remember being invited to the Treasury by the present High Commissioner for Australia when she held the most junior post at the Treasury, so it was eight or nine years ago. We discussed issues such as the merits of the Mongolian model, and it has taken a long time for the subject to reach the legislative stage. The argument about the independence of statisticians goes back a long way beyond the present generation of politicians. It was Disraeli who coined the much repeated phrase about"““lies, damned lies and statistics””." His experience was based on the then Government statistician, whom he described as an imbecile who spent his time constructing libels with which to damage the Government. The problem was that the Liberals appointed the chief statistician. Party political badinage on the subject is therefore long established. My third basic point is that although I welcome the move to independence, I worry—this is not a party point—about the tone of many of the professional comments from those who have been invited to comment on the Bill, including the Royal Statistical Society; the chairman of the Statistics Commission; Lord Moser, who is the towering figure in British statistics of the last generation; and the Statistics User Forum. All those bodies have broadly welcomed the Bill, but have been very critical of substantial parts of it, some of them damningly so. Bill McLennan, who was head of the Australian system, which has some merits as a model, said that the Bill would set back statistical independence for several generations. That is the most extreme expression of criticism, but it is clear that the professionals are not happy with the Bill as it stands.