Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Amendment No. 180 in this group is different from the Liberal Democrat amendment but addresses some of the same issues. Amendment No. 171 would restrict the board in the use of personal information to the board’s or National Statistician’s functions. Amendment No. 180 seeks to delete Clause 36(4)(c) and would not allow the disclosure of information which is, "““necessary for the purpose of enabling or assisting the Board to exercise any of its functions””." My purpose in tabling Amendment No. 180 is to probe why the board should ever need to disclose information for the purposes of its functions. I can see why the board might need to use personal information and I can see how it might feel that it could disclose in some of the circumstances set out in subsection (4), but I cannot understand the circumstances in which the board would need to disclose information for the purposes of its functions as set out in the Bill, such as reporting official statistics, defining official statistics, producing statistics, compiling the retail prices index and providing statistical services. It also has a function in research, but that is specifically covered in subsection (4)(i), and paragraph (c) is clearly not about that. So we are left with one area, the census, which is the only area given in the Explanatory Notes as the reason for the board needing to disclose information for the purposes of its functions. If that is the only reason, we believe that a much more targeted reference to the disclosure of information for that purpose should be included in the Bill, rather than the extremely broad permission given in subsection (4)(c) to disclose anything in relation to the board’s functions. I look forward to the Minister’s explanation.