Statistics and Registration Service Bill

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. What I am not clear about—perhaps the Minister will clarify it—is whether that is due to an oversight, or deliberate. Subsection (4) states explicitly that the board can intervene to direct the National Statistician as to how he or she carries out the operational part of his or her task. That is clearly wrong, and I do not think it is what the Government intended. Having reflected on what the subsection could mean in practice, I discussed with a former National Statistician how it would have applied in the context of the Railtrack classification. I was told that that decision had been extremely difficult and complex, and that a whole manual of national accounting must be consulted when such decisions are made. Had the Bill been in force at the time of the Railtrack decision, and had a non-executive member of the board been involved in the operational side of it, someone with a different opinion could have applied for a judicial review, because the non-executive board member would have been wholly unqualified to deal with such a difficult, technically demanding function. Probably only two or three people in the United Kingdom are competent to handle such decisions, but there are people overseas who could perhaps be involved in an advisory capacity. The purpose of the board, in its supervisory role, would be to ensure that good practice was followed—that the overseas advisers were enlisted, and that the National Statistician followed the correct procedures. In no circumstances should the non-executive members of the board be involved in such decisions. As the proposed legislation is currently drafted, the door is open for there to be intervention in operational matters. That would not only be contrary to the spirit of the legislation, but it could leave the Government open to expensive and damaging litigation. I urge the Minister to think carefully about the current drafting of the clause, as it is wholly contrary to the spirit of the Bill. What I have said lays bare the difficulty that Opposition Members are having in respect of trying to make sure that the legislation properly defines the scrutiny role of the board as opposed to the operational role of the National Statistician.