Statistics and Registration Service Bill

moved Amendment No. 62: 62: Clause 10, page 5, line 19, after ““Ireland,”” insert— ““( ) the Information Commissioner,”” The noble Earl said: From the Bill’s drafting, it is unclear to what extent it is intended that the code of practice will deal with the raw data from which statistics are derived. I could infer from our earlier debate on the amendment of my noble friend Lord Jenkin that the Government expect that the code will deal with that. Notwithstanding that, I would welcome clarification from the Minister. It will come as no surprise that I believe that the matter should be covered, not least because, as I indicated previously, the Bill envisages granting the Statistics Board access to broad swatches of administrative data that will qualify as sensitive and/or personal under the Data Protection Act. In those circumstances, it would be wholly appropriate for the code to be prepared and revised to reflect the expertise and advice offered by the Information Commissioner. I beg to move.