Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, I am gratefulto noble Lords for speaking to this amendment, although the previous debate probably covered a great deal of the ground in question. Of course, we appreciate the sentiment behind the amendment but we consider that the Bill already provides for the effect that it seeks to achieve. As I said in the previous debate, we are giving the National Statistician a position of unique significance compared with other leading professionals within government, and that difference is set out in statute. The Bill is clear on the National Statistician’s professional competence. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, agreed that it was ““obvious”” that the National Statistician would be the Government’s principal adviser on statistics. He was right in Committee and we agree with him, but the arguments are worth repeating here for the sake of clarity. I emphasise that the board is the legal entity. However, in practice, the National Statistician, as the professional head of the Government Statistical Service, will be the point of professional advice, either through statisticians in departments or formally, because of its legal personality and accountability, via the board itself. This is already clear at Clauses 8,9 and 27 of the Bill. Clause 8 provides that the board may report any concerns that it has about the quality of any official statistics, good practice in relation to them or their comprehensiveness to the person responsible for producing those statistics. That gives the board a very large remit to advise government on a wide range of issues relating to official statistics. Clause 9 gives the board a remit to develop and maintain definitions, methodologies, classifications and standards for official statistics. Following on from this, under Clause 27, the National Statistician is explicitly the board’s chief adviser on all professional and technical statistical matters. Indeed, the board must publish and report to Parliament, including giving reasons for overruling the National Statistician on professional, technical matters, if it does so. The Government are further reinforcing the National Statistician’s role with the amendments that we are moving today. They will provide further clarity and transparency in relation to the functions of the executive office, underlining the National Statistician’s professional status by ensuring that he or she is responsible forthe development and maintenance of definitions, methodologies, classifications and standards for official statistics, wherever produced. Amendment No. 26 would require the National Statistician to provide professional leadership to all persons in government engaged in the production or release of statistics. Inevitably, given the status of the National Statistician within the Bill, they will have to fulfil that role. In this capacity, as has been already said, we intend for the National Statistician to remain as the head of the Government Statistical Service and continue to provide professional leadership to those working on statistics in government. We have, however, chosen to retain the decentralised statistical system, and this decision has been widely supported, including in the other place by the Treasury Select Committee. A decentralised system inevitably means that statisticians remain working within government departments. It is not appropriate to legislate within the Civil Service structure for lines of accountability between staff working in departments and the National Statistician working in another department. The amendment would establish a relationship between the National Statistician and statisticians working in departments that would not be workable under our decentralised system. Given, as I indicated, that the National Statistician’s role as chief statistical adviser to departments via the board is clearly established in the clauses identified in the Bill, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.