Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this constructive debate. I am also pleased to record a measure of agreement between the Government and all noble Lords who have spoken today. Although some noble Lords indicated that they do not think that the Government are tightening up the system sufficiently within the framework of the Bill, it was conceded that the Bill is about tightening up the arrangements. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, asked about what he called the extraordinary figure of 40.5 hours. That seeks simply to regulate the most sensitive of all statistics; namely, those relating to the economy and market-sensitive information. The 40.5 hours is not a figment of strange imagination, but merely the calculation of the time taken up by a clear day’s grace between the closure of the markets on one day and the their opening on the next day but one. It derives from a calculation of those hours: one clear day plus the hours before the markets open on the actual release day, and from the time that the markets have closed on the day before. It is not a strange formulation but rationalises a period within which statistics would be released under the pre-release arrangements, against a background of the necessary arrangements for market-sensitive material.