Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, the amendments in this group have become known as the muddle amendments. The noble Baroness described several aspects of the potential muddle. The government amendments deal with some of them but not, unfortunately, all of them. They deal pretty comprehensively with the potential muddle between the National Statistician and the head of assessment. In my view, that is arguably the least important element in this regard. The government amendments do not deal adequately with the potential muddle between the function of the board as opposed to that of the National Statistician. Government Amendment No. 32 states: "““The National Statistician must establish an executive office … to assist him in his exercise of””," this, that and the other function. That sort of implies that that is his, rather than the board’s, function. It is therefore a great pity that the Government did not also accept proposed subsection (1) of Amendment No. 2, which states that, "““the National Statistician is to carry out the functions of the Board, and in respect of those functions he is to be the chief executive of the Board””." You could have sensibly gone on from there with the Government’s amendment but the government amendment starts off halfway through the narrative. I hope that, whatever we decide this afternoon, the Government will add that small subsection at Third Reading. It simply clarifies what they seem to want to achieve. At the noble Baroness mentioned, in the amendments there is no reference to, and no attempt to clarify, the role of the chairman vis-à-vis the board. I suspect that this will have to be down to the good sense and personalities of the people involved. There may be a marginal difference in the balance of who becomes the voice of the board if the chairman is a very strong public figure and the National Statistician is relatively self-effacing compared with a chairman who is very sound but not quite as forward as a high-profile National Statistician. Therefore, there may be a need to retain a degree of flexibility in how those two individuals behave and work together, although everything will depend on them working together well. Although some of the mist is clearing from the muddle, some remains. I hope that the Minister will look at that small additional amendment at Third Reading. As the noble Baroness said, we are grateful to the Government for at least having looked at and grappled with this matter. We accept that it is not an easy issue and, in that spirit, we, too, will support the government amendments this afternoon.