Statistics and Registration Service Bill

In the early 1960s, I was in probably the first batch of people to be subjected to a seminar on the hedonic prices index. It was an attempt to explain how the price of an automobile changes in terms of its various characteristics—its top speed, comfort and so forth—because there was no other way of explaining why the price of a car changes. It was agreed that it must be because the various components are valued differently by different people. That started the hedonic price statistics movement and made available a theoretical basis for why it makes sense in terms of economics. I shall spare noble Lords from listening to the detail. In the light of what my noble friend Lord Lea said, what concerns me is that the reason for including or not including something may be technical, and perhaps sensitive. By making these issues public, we may create interruptions in the market because of a problem so technical that most people do not understand it. However, they will say, ““If the Chancellor has forbidden it, he must be hiding something””. It is quite possible that the Chancellor had taken the view that a certain issue was not yet settled. He would not be ready to judge whether a particular item should be incorporated into the index. I understand that someone should have oversight in this area and I would like to find a way for the board to deal with such matters, but not so as to cause unnecessary fluctuations in the market for, say, gilts. Those things affect people’s livelihoods. I do not want our universal suspicion of the Chancellor and the thought that he or she is up to no good to be incorporated into the Bill, because that may cause problems later on.