Statistics and Registration Service Bill

Amendment No. 6 is intended to probe the Government’s decision to set the minimum number of board members, in addition to the chairman, at five. Many groups not mentioned in Clause 3(4) may feel that they should also be represented on the board. Although it is not the Government’s intention, I am concerned that there might be a misunderstanding that the aim of this lower limit is to exclude representation. As we have heard, the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, would like to balance the representation of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with a representative of the regions in England. His amendments, drawn from the briefing of the Association of Regional Observatories, are not surprising. The Local Government Association recommends a full quarter of the board being drawn from local data users, such as the emergency services. Outside the field of geography, many others could arguably have a useful role to play; for example, the Statistics User Forum. Presumably, there also need to be sufficient members with the appropriate experience to participate in the audit committee. If the board has only two non-executive members who do not already represent certain countries within the UK, those appointees will have to be impressive polymaths to satisfy the various competing groups. With this amendment, I do not mean to offer an opinion on the relative value of each of those stakeholder groups. Clearly, it would be to the board's advantage to have as much expertise and representation as is feasible at its disposal. However, with all the special interest members, I cannot help wondering whether any of the non-executive members will have time left over after fighting their specialities’ corner to supervise the National Statistician. Our amendment would, I hope, send a message to the public that the Government do not seek to exclude some of those interested parties.