Statistics and Registration Service Bill

The debate on this subject has been shorter than debates on it in previous proceedings, but it has nevertheless been useful. I hope that Members will accept that statistics produced and published by government—by more than 200 Crown bodies—differ in levels of importance and that the Bill has a wide definition of official statistics. The definition of official statistics that we have used is wide in order to allow the board to monitor and report on the ever-increasing range of official statistics and official statistical information that is being produced across government. For that reason, it is important that we give the board a starting point for its process of assessment and approval. That starting point is those statistics that are designated as national statistics—a concept that has been established since the reforms of 2000. We are also giving the board, and the system, a way to evolve in the future, as the board will report on its views about the comprehensiveness and coverage of the system and official statistics can be nominated to the board for assessment. I should point out to the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) that there is no false dichotomy: there are already two-tiered—indeed, multi-tiered—official statistics. He surely would not argue that figures such as population data, the gross domestic product and unemployment figures are of equal status and importance to other official statistics produced by the Government and covered by the definition in the Bill, such as the income derived from unclaimed lost property or the number of TV licences held by particular Departments. Surely the crucial feature is not that all official Government statistics be assessed and approved, as the hon. Gentleman seems to be arguing, but that all the most important ones, designated as national statistics, are. It is for that reason that I do not accept amendment No. 18.