Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Turnbull and Lord Newby, and my noble friend Lord Barnett. We suspect that Governments might undermine the independence of statistics, but the best way to deal with that would be for Parliament to keep an eye on the Government by asking them to be accountable to it and to give evidence to it. Appointments made to the Statistics Board should also be scrutinised by Parliament. Parliament should not do an executive job; it should do what legislators do. That separation must be there. This series of amendments tabled by the noble Baroness puzzles me. Once upon a time, our statistics service had independence and trust; we did not need parliamentary commissions. We have not examined when that trust broke down, but it was not last year or the year before—it was some time ago, which is why in 2000 the Government made a first attempt to ensure independence, and now they are having a second bite of the cherry. It is important to realise that the old system was not so broken that we needed to add a whole new system of machinery to it. We need to ensure some financial stability and I assure noble Lords that a quinquennial settlement is not a bad idea. That was the system under which universities enjoyed substantial autonomy for many years. So far as I can see from Amendment No. 237 in the name of the noble Baroness, Parliament is supposed to carry out this task annually, but I think that that would cause unnecessary harassment and worry. Perhaps I may add one more comment. We all love Parliament but a recent attempt has been made to interfere with freedom of information with respect to parliamentarians. It has not been successful so far but the idea has not been abandoned. I am concerned that statistics could become a political football if a parliamentary commission had executive powers, and we do not want that to happen. We do not want a parliamentary committee suddenly to decide that no data about Parliament will be released, and things such as that, which I am sure some people would want. So I should prefer scrutiny issues to be handled by a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament and executive functions to stay as they are, with a quinquennial settlement for the moneys to be provided to the Statistics Board.