Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, I beg to move, That this House do not insist on its Amendments Nos. 10 and 14, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reasons 10A and 14A. These amendments relate to the important issue of how and when statistics are released under the new system and the monitoring of the arrangements for release. We have discussed amendments similar to these at considerable length at earlier stages. I have explained in some detail that these amendments seek to make explicit something that is already possible under the Bill as drafted. These amendments would require the board to monitor the arrangements for the release of official statistics and pre-release access to those statistics. They would take this duty further and require the board, through its code of practice, also to provide for the rules and principles relating to release practices that the board would be monitoring. I emphasise that the board already has this power. Under Clause 10, the board must prepare, adopt and publish a code of practice. It is inconceivable that such a code would not provide guidance as to how and when statistics shall be released and who shall be responsible for that. Moreover, under Clause 12, the board has a duty to assess compliance with that code. The Government fully expect the board to include in its code of practice arrangements for the release of statistics. Indeed, the Bill before us allows the board not only to monitor these arrangements as required under Amendment No. 10, but to determine them in the first place, as required by Amendment No. 14. As part of this—as I have explained in some detail, and as I set out in my letter to noble Lords—the Government are committed to the creation of a central publication hub, through which all national statistics will be released in the new system, separating statistical commentary from policy statements. That has been at the nub of the issues presented to us on this question of pre-release matters. Clearly, as a ““release practices”” tool, it will be for the board, in consultation with the National Statistician, to create the hub. The Government have made it clear that their expectation is that the board should do so, and I hope that the House will agree with that strategy. In anticipation of the creation of the new board, and with an eye to the board establishing a central hub in good time, statisticians and officials across government have been considering how this hub might operate in practice, and its key features. I have laid in the Library of the House a paper summarising the outcomes of this early consideration, which we intend to pass to the board, once it is established, to guide the hub’s development. I note, however, that the final form and specification of the hub will be for the board to decide; that is its responsibility. I fully accept the position taken on these amendments in another place. As I have set out, the Bill as drafted makes more than adequate provision for the board’s supervision of release arrangements. That is why I hope that the House will recognise that the position adopted in another place should be endorsed. I beg to move. Moved, That this House do not insist on its Amendments Nos. 10 and 14, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reasons 10A and 14A.—(Lord Davies of Oldham.)