Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, I add my thanks for the amendments tabled by the Government, which go a long way to meet the concerns expressed in this House and in another place during earlier stages of the Bill. Like my noble friend Lady Noakes, I am puzzled by Amendment No. 6, which takes out the word ““national”” and leaves ““statistics”” because the Bill cannot cover statistics that are produced outside the machinery of government. The amendment tabled by the Opposition, Amendment No. 7, replaces ““national”” with ““official””, which makes it clear that we are talking about official statistics. Perhaps the Minister will respond to that. The Minister made it clear that he expects that most statistics will become national statistics in due course by qualifying through the process of assessment to be accepted by the board. He suggested that the failure of a set of statistics to qualify as official national statistics would operate as a condign punishment of some sort. I think that it will be the other way round and that a lot of departments will fight against their statistics becoming national statistics. They will want to retain their statistics as official statistics, which do not receive the same degree of scrutiny. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that the proposals appear quite complicated. It may well be that the board will have the power to make sure that the process can continue. However, the idea that departments will feel under pressure to have their statistics upgraded to national statistics does not seem to represent the reality of what the Minister described at an earlier stage as a process of negotiation between the Treasury and other departmental Ministers. In the Government’s determination to preserve two grades of statistics—national and other official statistics—I detect that that argument continues and that the Treasury would like to see all official statistics as national statistics, but other departments have refused to agree. If that is the position, I am not convinced that this process will mean that all statistics will become national statistics within a short while, as the Minister suggested.