Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My view on this matter can be simply put. I have defended the principle of pre-release, which I think is consistent with the way we operate ministerial accountability. Nevertheless I support the central thrust of this group of amendments—that responsibility for this should be given to the Statistics Board, which should settle these matters after consulting with Ministers. I agree with the phrase proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin: ““the minimum necessary””. That recognises the principle of need. I have reservations about some aspects of these amendments. One, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, seeks to separate in time the release of the statistics and the release of the ministerial or departmental comment. I see no comment to separate the two in time, because in that lag various things could go wrong. I believe the principle should be separation of channels, which is why I think the ““hub”” idea, in which the statistics are released in one place in a central hub controlled by the board and the comment comes out of the department—separation in space, so to speak—is the better route to follow. There is also an amendment from the Liberal Democrat Benches that seeks to give the power to the board, but then seeks to set a maximum time. If they are giving this power to the board, it should have the responsibility for settling matters, and different series of statistics may require different lengths of time.