Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, the amendment seeks to establish that the National Statistician will have direct access to the Prime Minister on any matter involving the integrity of official statistics or a dispute with a government department regarding official statistics. As I said in Committee, the National Statistician, through the Cabinet Secretary, already has that right of access under the present framework for national statistics. We intend to carry this forward; we just do not consider it necessary or appropriate to put on the face of the Bill. It is not in statute at present and we do not intend to put it in statute now. I remind the House of the status of the National Statistician which will be established by the Bill if and when it becomes an Act. The post will be statutory. He or she will be the head of the executive office in the same way as the current head of the Office for National Statistics, reporting in the future to a board instead of Ministers. The post will be a Crown appointment, provided for by Clause 5, and the holder will be a full member of the board, sharing responsibility with other board members for ultimate decision-making and its chief executive. The answer to the noble Baroness’s query on that is straightforward. He or she will take primary responsibility for the integrity of national statistics in any discussions with government departments or others. Clause 27 states that the National Statistician is also the chief statistical adviser to the board on all professional and technical statistical matters—we are reinforcing that status today—and he or she will remain the head of the Government Statistical Service and the Government’s chief statistical adviser, providing leadership to the professional statisticians in government. The noble Lord, Lord Moser, discussed the crucial responsibilities involved. The nearest comparators to the National Statistician are probably the Government's Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser, or perhaps the heads of the Government Economic Service and the Government Social Research Service. However, none of those is a statutory post, unlike this one, and while they are leaders of their respective professions in government, they have no right of access to the Prime Minister, statutory or otherwise. Nor are there requirements on the Government to follow their advice or to give reasons if they do not do so. But that is exactly what this legislation will require of the National Statistician. I am sure that noble Lords recognise that the National Statistician’s position is unrivalled among professionals in government. I recognise the concerns of noble Lords to ensure the influence of the National Statistician, both behind the scenes and in public. I reassure the House that the Government take this very seriously, share this aim and have tried to respond to it in the Bill. However, given the status of the National Statistician in the new arrangements, they are bound to carry weight within government at the very highest levels. The bedrock of this new system is transparency and accountability to Parliament. In the unlikely event that the board or National Statistician has a problem that really cannot be resolved within government, they may go public with their concerns, with all the authority that they would carry behind them. The board, of which the National Statistician is a member, already has wide-ranging powers to comment and report on official statistics. I would be surprised if any public comment by them went unheeded. That alone should encourage Ministers, including the Prime Minister, to take the National Statistician’s views very seriously, as all preceding Prime Ministers have done. There is no question about the status of the National Statistician in the Bill, and there is therefore no need for the amendment. I hope that it will be withdrawn.