Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. I am sorry that my model did not gain more support around the House but it has enabled us to have a debate about important issues. The noble Lords, Lord Turnbull and Lord Newby, raised the question of whether there would be a conflict of interest between Parliament’s holding the Statistics Board to account and also setting its financial envelope and making appointments. I am not sure that that is a huge problem—and it is not a problem with the NAO, which has worked perfectly well—but I accept that some distinctions could be made between the NAO and an organisation such as the Statistics Board. The noble Lord, Lord Barnett, suggested that this new commission would take up a lot of time. That was not the intent. The intent was that it would deal with appointments and money, which could be done annually or perhaps even five-yearly, and that it would deal with the basic oversight of the Statistics Board, but that it would not be at it every day of the week, which the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, seemed to imply, because it would not be carrying out executive functions. We were not suggesting that the Statistics Board would sit within the legislature, to use the phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, merely that certain powers would sit within the legislature. We had an interesting debate on money, which teased out the fact that that is one of the important areas. My noble friend Lady O’Cathain has helped us to see that this Bill is probably deficient in the way in which it approaches money, because it leaves the issue of money entirely to the Treasury. It does not even enshrine a five-year settlement, which might beone way forward that we may well want to explore later. This debate has also been useful in improving and strengthening the coalition of support around my noble friend Lord Jenkin’s views for a joint committee. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, indicated that we could never write in Joint Committees, but I am told that we can write in joint commissions, and we may well have a go at writing in a joint scrutiny commission at a later stage. I believe that my amendment has enabled us to have a useful debate on some of the issues that we needed to address, but I beg leave to withdraw it. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 1 agreed to. Clause 2 [Status]: On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?