Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I put my name down in support of this amendment for the obvious reason that others mentioned: it is crucial that the National Statistician is publicly and officially regarded as the ultimate authority for all official statistics. Clauses 28 and 29 cover that ground. Clause 28 covers the advisory role of the National Statistician and Clause 29 covers the executive role. The amendment is important because it must be clear beyond any shadow of doubt that, when there is a problem anywhere in the statistical system, the Government look to the National Statistician as the final arbiter, adviser and authority. In my experience it was always beyond doubt that, although I was director of the CSO, I was also head of the Government Statistical Service, so if there was a problem with, let us say, health or education statistics, although those departments were expected to deal with it, if it remained in any way or form the Prime Minister would look to me as the ultimate authority. That is why it is very important that the Bill provides that the ultimate authority and responsibility for all statistics, national or non-national—if that remains a distinction, which I am very much against—in every department should remain the National Statistician. There is another subtle point. One tends to think of the National Statistician and his or her colleagues as simply responsible for standards, methodology and quality in general, but the responsibility is much bigger. He or she is also responsible for planning, by looking ahead, the entire statistical system. That is an advisory role. He or she may decide that in the years or months to come it might become very important to improve migration statistics—we all know that it is—or some other field of statistics. It is a planning operation. The National Statistician may decide that that requires the co-operation of all the departments because it is a co-ordinating job. In that way also he or she is the ultimate authority. For those reasons, the amendment is important.