Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I am coming to that. As the right hon. Gentleman says, we must also consider which Department is likely to be of the greatest assistance to the board and the National Statistician when they require the assistance of a Department in standing up to other Departments when those Departments’ standards in producing and releasing statistics fall below par. The third question is which Department would be the most effective in arguing the case for the board and statistical services in determining the appropriate level of funding. The Opposition believe in every case that the answer to those questions is the Cabinet Office and not, as is provided by the Bill, the Treasury. In this we share the view of many who expressed concerns during the consultation, including a number of distinguished academics, as well as the Royal Statistical Society and the Statistics Commission. On the first question, we believe that the Cabinet Office is less likely than the Treasury to seek to exert political influence over the priorities and work of the board in a way that is out of line with the Bill’s goals. We base that conclusion on the fact that the Cabinet Office has no direct interest in a particular type of statistic, whereas, naturally, the Treasury does. For obvious reasons, the Treasury has a particular focus on economic statistics. As a major consumer of statistics, it is not disinterested. The potential for a conflict of interest is exacerbated by the fact that the measurement of the Treasury’s performance in critical areas of economic and fiscal policy is heavily dependent on the statistics and judgment of those who are responsible for producing them. The Cabinet Office, on the other hand, has no such conflict of interest, a point made by Lord Moser to the Treasury Committee. It is neither a major consumer of statistics nor is its performance heavily linked to statistical analysis.