Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, the board will operate within the framework of legislation, which will say the ““code for statistics””. If the board finds that that is in any way, shape or form restrictive, in a way that I cannot anticipate—and I do not think that the noble Baroness has substantiated what may cause difficulty for the board’s operation—it would be for the board to make representation on that point and we would have to address our minds to it. We do not see that there is any problem for the board. Here is a code for statistics. The board will know its responsibility for all official statistics and its specific responsibilities with regard to national statistics. In so far as there has been confusion as to whether the board has any responsibility for statistics that are not official statistics, the answer is no. But what was sought and what is hoped for is that the board’s work—the definition of statistics and the quality and rigour of those statistics—will act as a guide to others who aspire to put statistics into the public realm; if such bodies hit the standards that the board has established for official statistics, they are much more likely to be credible in their work.