Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, as the objective set out in Clause 7 is the cornerstone of the Bill it is right that the House should subject it to the most robust debate, and the amendment raises important issues. The noble Lords who contributed to the debate emphasised the value of local-level statistics, the importance of meeting the needs of users, providing benefits for citizens and, of course, the crucial issue of public trust. The Government believe that the objective set out in the Bill should be succinct, broad and high-level. It is designed to make a clear statement of the overall purpose of the board. It is to ““promote and safeguard”” the quality, good practice and comprehensiveness of the official statistics that serve the public good. Clause 7 sets out the objective clearly, concisely and in an entirely appropriate way by covering the right ground in sufficient detail. I turn to the question of trust which the noble Baroness emphasised in her contribution was crucial. The amendment specifies, "““achieving high levels of public trust in statistics””." One of the Government’s key aims in establishing this independent board is to improve the level of public trust in official statistics. That is the genesis of the Bill. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury has repeatedly made that point, as did I when the legislation first came before your Lordships’ House. As I argued in Committee, however, many factors outside the scope of the board’s responsibilities determine the level of trust in statistics and it would be an unrealistic obligation to put on the board in specific terms. When considering this issue at Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Moser, said that trust is a ““complex matter””, and indeed it is. He observed that trust in statistics is part and parcel of trust in the Government themselves, and indeed in politicians in general. I am sure that we all recognise the truth of that remark. Levels of numeracy and people’s understanding of figures and statistics are likely to impact on people’s degree of scepticism or otherwise of official statistics. People’s individual experiences of issues presented at an aggregate level by statistics also play a part in their propensity to trust statistics. We know, for example, that the public perception of levels of crime does not mirror what often appears in crime statistics. How statistics are used and how they are presented to people, especially by the media, plays an important role in whether they trust public figures.