Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I side in this case with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain. It is inconsistent to propose a series of amendments designed to boost the status of the National Statistician and, at the same time, to propose another amendment that would diminish the status of the National Statistician by saying, ““You are not even a member of the board””. A completely different model is to be found in the relationship between the Health and Safety Commission and the Health and Safety Executive, but I do not think that anyone is proposing a complete separation of the supervisory board from the executive board. So long as you have one board in two parts, it is essential that the chief executive is a member of that board. On the question of trust, the point is not that statistics are used or misused. There is the whole question of definitions. The really difficult definitions are whether things are in the public sector, whether they are underwritten by the Treasury or whether they are part of the borrowing requirement. That is an important battleground and the board is being assigned responsibility for those definitions and methodologies. I want the board to retain that responsibility, so as not to put it exclusively on the National Statistician, thereby exposing him—although in saying this I am getting on to the next set of amendments—to very personal pressure about whether a decision went one way or the other. With these amendments, I am definitelyfor keeping the National Statistician as a full board member, along with the finance director and head of assessment.