Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I shall come back to parliamentary scrutiny in a moment. On the board we will also endeavour to ensure that, as well as expertise from the devolved countries, we have the widest range of expertise. As the Financial Secretary made clear in our earlier discussion on scope, the issues considered under the category of national statistics go much wider than the economic. Indeed, the majority of series categorised as national statistics do not come under current ONS arrangements, so it is clear that the scope is very wide indeed. We will need to ensure that people appointed to the board through the Nolan process cover the widest range of expertise. It is our view that the scope is wide, and it will be made wider over time—there was some discussion of this issue earlier, and I shall not repeat it here—but the idea that as a matter of principle, every official statistic should be a national statistic, independent of its importance or of the resource implications, is not realistic. For example, the Treasury collects detailed information on the number of parliamentary questions asked by Opposition Members. There is no need for that to be categorised as a national statistic and to be scrutinised through these processes.