Statistics and Registration Service Bill

The arguments against the Government’s approach on pre-release have been made throughout proceedings on the Bill by Members on both sides of the House. I welcome the contribution of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), and I look forward to seeing him in the Lobby. The Government’s arguments may be delivered by a different voice, but I suspect that they will be familiar. I wish to return to the subject of the Treasury Committee’s visit to the Republic of Ireland, to which I referred earlier. We met members of the Central Statistics Office in Dublin who, unprompted, raised concerns about the Bill, specifically the proposals on pre-release. They pointed out that under the office’s code of practice, it decides the rules of pre-release—it is not left to the Government, and there is no carve-out. It is odd that the thing that causes the most concern—the perception of ministerial interference, which damages the credibility of statistics—is the very thing on which there is a carve-out in the Bill, which allows ministerial control. The Irish statisticians were concerned about that, and they reflected the view of the international statistical community. I did not know that there was such a community, but it is concerned about the Bill, especially the pre-release provisions. It is not surprising that strong concerns have been expressed by Members on both sides of the House, so I hope that the Government will reconsider their position.