Statistics and Registration Service Bill

First, I want to thank the Minister, who has listened during the Committee stage, even though he did not listen to everything that we said. I am pleased that we have put a definition of ““public good”” into statute, and that the points about dismissal for misbehaviour and about the directions have been cleared up. He has certainly listened, and I want to thank him for that. Of course, serious flaws remain in the Bill. I shall not repeat them at length, but I have identified four, as did the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable). First, the board remains a muddle of non-executive and executive members, and that is a problem. Secondly, it remains appointed and funded by Treasury Ministers, just as the existing Office for National Statistics is. That, too, is a problem. Thirdly, there is no full supervisory duty for the board right across Whitehall. Despite tabling a whole series of amendments, we have not been able to persuade the Minister to include that specific duty. Fourthly, as everyone has said, Ministers will still control one of the most generous and favourable systems of pre-release in the world. The Ministers appear to have started out with reasonable intentions for the Bill, but at some point between the consultation and the drafting, somebody somewhere changed their minds. We have had good debates in Committee and in the House today, but it is interesting that the Minister has been unable to adduce any evidence from systems elsewhere in the world to support the changes that he is making. On the contrary, the countries that have put their statistics on to a statutory basis have done so in a much more independent way than the Minister is proposing today. The hon. Member for Twickenham mentioned the Commonwealth countries. I should like to bring to the House’s attention the example of Ireland, where legislation was passed in 1993. The statistics board in Ireland is completely non-executive; it has no role in management. It has an advisory and supervisory role. Its director general—that is what the national statistician is called there—is appointed by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister and works to the Prime Minister’s office, completely independently of any other Government Department. Critically, it is the director general, not Ministers, who deals with the issue of pre-release access, which is limited to a matter of hours. So there are still flaws in the Bill that need attention in another place. I want to say a quick word about the Office for National Statistics. There is a danger that, while we have admired the plumage, we are forgetting the dying bird. It is clear to me—and it is certainly clear to the Statistics Commission—that the ONS is under huge pressure at the moment as a result of the reorganisation required by the Bill, the imposition of efficiency targets, the relocation to Newport and the preparatory work for the 2011 census, including this year’s pilot schemes. I am concerned about the multiple effects of those various changes on a small department of state. To get the new board up and running by April next year will require a huge amount of work and senior management time. Meanwhile the ONS is required to meet challenging efficiency targets—I understand that the three initial targets for 2006 were missed. The modernisation programme is creating enormous burdens for staff. The relocation was mentioned in Committee. About 260 staff have to leave for Newport before next year and the rest by 2010, only a year before the census. In three years’ time few senior staff will be left in London, so I am concerned about the need to maintain the integrity of the department while all those changes are taking place. The new board will have primary responsibility for the census, which will be a huge exercise, not least in garnering public support behind such an essential undertaking. The Statistics Commission wrote to the Financial Secretary on 1 February, pointing out that there were"““serious concerns requiring the closest attention of those who are responsible for setting the targets for ONS as well as those responsible for meeting them””." I hope the Financial Secretary will bear those concerns in mind as we wish the Bill well and speed its passage through to another House where more attention will obviously be required for some of the flaws we have identified.