Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment, and I speak only because my name was mentioned. It is true that in my day the role of the post of what is now called the National Statistician—then the director of the Central Statistical Office—came directly under the Prime Minister. I was directly responsible to the Prime Minister, and this was real. I served three Prime Ministers, all of whom took a direct interest. Although I need hardly say that the link was encouraging, its importance was not so much personal as the fact that—because we had a decentralised system, to which we have referred at various times—if there were problems with statistics in other departments and the National Statistician found it difficult to deal with them, the post had the Prime Minister directly behind it. That was invaluable. It made the running of a decentralised system much easier than it might otherwise have been. In the other amendment, which is now part of the Bill, the so-called residual responsibilities would move anyhow from the Treasury to the Cabinet Office, and therefore, with that direct link, through the Cabinet Secretary to the Prime Minister. That would ensure the link anyhow. But just in case that amendment does not commend itself to the House of Commons, or to us if it returns here, I would support this amendment.