Statistics and Registration Service Bill

The Minister will, I hope, be relieved to hear that my purpose in initiating a clause stand part debate is probing in character. As I implied with my earlier amendment, my motivation stems from my concern about the extent to which the Government envisage that the board should, or should not, become a conduit for the wider dissemination of raw data, rather than statistics, throughout Whitehall and conceivably beyond. The Minister sought earlier to offer me some reassurance on the point by referring to Clause 44(9). However, I am not convinced that that provision affords me all that much comfort. Clause 24(1) states: "““The Board may do anything which it thinks necessary or expedient””." Its potential scope therefore, in so far as it is not confined to ““statistical”” function, is extremely wide. I acknowledge that up to a point it may be constrained by virtue of the reference to ““ancillary”” powers, but, by the same token, there is no indication in the Bill as to what these may be. Accordingly, it is mildly tempting to suppose that the clause offers an open invitation to function creep. It may well be that I am being unnecessarily obtuse. Nevertheless, it would be helpful to know whether the Government’s intention is that the power granted is to be limited to ““statistical”” function alone or whether it is intended to go wider. If it is the latter, it would be helpful to know the sort of circumstances in which the Government envisage the power being exercised. Indeed, I should be grateful if he could provide some practical examples.