Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I extend my congratulations to the Exchequer Secretary. A few weeks ago, I found myself debating with her on television and radio, and perhaps I should have taken that as an early warning of what was to come, but she is welcome in her new role. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Wentworth (John Healey) on guiding the Bill through Committee and on debating it in a way that we all appreciated. Through his intercession, another key difficulty has been removed, and we have only one remaining difficulty with the Government about the Bill as a whole. In the same spirit of bonhomie, may I make a correction? The last time I spoke in the House, I mistook the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands) for Guy Hands, the equity fund entrepreneur. Although the hon. Gentleman was not offended—I think he was amused—he has asked me to read that correction into the record, not least because if he were thought to be a trillionaire, his party fundraisers would be after him. There is little to say about the Bill. The hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) acknowledged that the Government accept the profession’s criticism that the role of the superintending Department should properly go to the Cabinet Office. From the outset, the key point has always been—it was made in the Select Committee report—that the Treasury potentially had a conflict of interest in relation to economic statistics and, at the same time, no particular interest or expertise in the hundreds if not thousands of other national statistics produced by Government, and that it was altogether more appropriate to have a Department that on the one hand was less powerful, and on the other hand had a broader remit. The Cabinet Office meets that description. It is a co-ordinating Department, and were there a serious challenge to the authority of the statistics board, the Cabinet Office Minister could invoke the authority of the Prime Minister. This is a good decision. I appreciate the fact that the Government have listened on this key point and I am sure that we can proceed quickly as a result.