Statistics and Registration Service Bill

It is at least a relief to find that the Minister is now more relaxed about using the word ““trust”” in relation to statistics; we are clearly making progress. He has made great play of why the board should not be accountable for achieving trust. We must look at the barriers to achieving trust. In some of the amendments that we will reach in due course, we are asking for the board to be given the power to comment on statistics being misused. There is the very important issue of pre-release, which will get at one aspect of the handling of statistics that has engendered so much distrust of the Government. The Bill could be framed in such a way that it would be perfectly reasonable to ask the board to do things within its powers to achieve high levels of trust in public statistics, though I completely accept that, in its current form, it would be unreasonable to ask the board to do that. On the Minister’s objections to research, the Government are reluctant to prescribe having items specified for annual reports, as they say that that would not be helpful. However, those are not major objections to important issues that should be kept wholly within public view. I did not find the Minister’s overall response entirely satisfactory, although, as I said earlier, I am much encouraged by his ability to articulate the word ““trust””. I shall have to read carefully what he said in his response before deciding what to do with the amendment on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.