Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, our names are added to several of the amendments in this group, and I support what the noble Lord, Lord Moser, said about the core group of Amendments Nos. 42, 57, 57A, 58, 93 and Clause 11 standing part. We also have in this group Amendments Nos. 90 and 92, which we shall not be moving. They propose the publication of the names of the people who were granted access and the terms of the access. We commend that to the Minister as a good idea, whatever happens with this group of amendments, and we hope that he will respond to it. Amendment No. 42 introduces a function of the board to monitor arrangements for release and pre-release. It is important not to lose sight of the fact that the board will be setting the rules under the amendments via the code of practice, but it also needs to monitor how it will work out in practice and include that in its annual report. Doubtless, the Minister will argue that the Bill does not give the Government the power to set new rules but Parliament will make those decisions by approving a statutory instrument. The Minister will know that we regard that as a mere fig-leaf. The Government will customarily get their statutory instruments through, and they will certainly have control over whether any alterations are made to the rules once they are set by statutory instrument. It simply does not meet the public interest of ensuring that statistics are free from government spin. To reiterate points made by my noble friend Lord Jenkin and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, about the hub for statistics, that is a very interesting idea about which we have heard almost nothing in detail. Whatever the Minister says today—and I am sure that we will be grateful if he gives us any further information—we believe that the issue of release should be in the Bill within the power of the Statistics Board, however persuasive the Minister is about the Government’s plans for a new hub. Finally, I alluded a moment ago to the issue of changing the rules for pre-release. However they are set up initially, they may not work in practice, and we may find that particular Ministers abuse the pre-release access that they are given, or that too many people are given pre-release access. With a statutory instrument, we would be in the hands of the Government to make changes. Clearly, as the most interested party, it is unlikely that they would make changes. The key issue of giving the board control is that the board has the ability to change the arrangements over time if what is initially set up proves not in practice to provide arrangements that form an important part of restoring trust in statistics. The noble Lord, Lord Moser, my noble friend Lord Jenkin and others have referred to the need for those arrangements to play their important part in restoring trust, which is why we firmly believe that the Statistics Board should be in charge of the arrangements.