Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I am grateful to the Minister for his detailed reply to the debate. There were one or two points that I felt uncomfortable about. One was the reference to international acceptance of pre-release; this is true, but not in the sense of international acceptance of the degree of pre-release that we have. In most places it would be regarded as excessive. I said when I introduced the amendment that tightening up to 40.5 hours for non-market-sensitive data is a mini-step in the right direction, but no more than that. The Minister made very clear that there is nothing in the Bill to prevent the board commenting on pre-release arrangements, or monitoring anything to do with statistics. Listening to that took me back to the early days of the route towards this debate when the Chancellor first mentioned what he had in mind. I was one of many in the professional statistical world who welcomed the Chancellor’s initiative, as I still do. I welcome that there is a Bill. I welcome the fact that this is all intended to improve public confidence in official statistics. It is evident to everyone that the lack of public confidence has less to do with the quality of the statistics than with how they are used by Ministers, the media and everyone else. That is the central issue. Any commentator from the statistical world, either here or abroad, considering the Bill and welcoming this route towards greater confidence would want to know what is proposed about pre-release—the one subject on which this country is so out of line with most others. They would be surprised to find that Clause 11, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, has already drawn attention, states that that is nothing to do with the code. It would surprise everyone that the board is evidently not given prime authority. It is not enough to know that nothing can stop the board from taking a key interest in the area. The amendment provides that governing pre-release—in other words, deciding on pre-release arrangements, which, incidentally, should be uniform across Whitehall—should be a prime responsibility of the board and a prime content of the code. It should be able not just to comment or to monitor; it should be in charge of that central aspect of public trust. Because that view is still some considerable distance from what the Minister said, I suggest that we test the opinion of the House. On Question, Whether the said amendment(No. 42) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 196; Not-Contents, 133. [Amendments Nos. 43 and 44 not moved.]