Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, I certainly support my noble friend on this. We have referred to it already today, but I want to call attention again to the Statement on constitutional reform made by the Prime Minister last week. His very first sentence in another place was: "““All Members of this House and all the people of this country have a shared interest in building trust in our democracy””.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/7/07; col. 815.]" Those who have taken part in the Bill will recognise that we have had a great deal to say about what the Government have called ““enhancing”” trust but what the rest of the country has referred to as ““restoring”” trust. The main debate started with a report, which I shall not bother to quote, from the Treasury Select Committee in another place; it, too, made it very clear that the restoration of trust had to be at the heart of this legislation. I recognise that Ministers, under sustained pressure in both Houses, have moved quite a bit, but they have not yet done what is necessary if their aim of restoring trust is to be achieved. At the heart of this public mistrust lies the perception that it is Ministers and departments that spin the figures which, no doubt with complete honesty and integrity, are produced by statisticians at the ONS and at the departments. Again, as was drawn to our attention by the Select Committee in another place, we need to remember that the United Kingdom is alone in suffering this massive loss of public trust in its statistics, and therefore we have to make a special effort to put that right. The Government’s strategy on this has been to separate the role of Ministers from that of those who produce and disseminate statistics, and the principal instrument has been the creation of the Statistics Board, which has been widely welcomed in all parts of the House as a very positive step forward. The release of statistics and what is known as pre-release have been the source of much criticism—the former because of Ministers’ selective use of the statistics produced by the statisticians, which has drowned out the voices of the professional statisticians, and the latter because it has opened up the temptation to spin in advance of what may be in the eventual release. I was here on Friday and got the Minister’s letter, therefore I have been able to study it carefully. He set out the reasons for rejecting the amendments agreed to in this place, which would have put the board, not Ministers, at the heart of managing the process. The Government have said that they will deal with this by secondary legislation, but that is not good enough. We all know that secondary legislation cannot be amended and that almost exclusively it is passed by the Government using their majority in another place. Rarely are regulations rejected. The Minister’s letter describing what has been set out referred to the central publication hub, and I believe that at last we have some information about it. We have been asking about the hub from the beginning of the Bill. Now we have it in the paper that he says he placed in the Library, and which he attached to his letter. Much of this is very welcome. The roles of the board and the National Statistician needed to be clarified. I come back to the same sentence referred to by the Minister in his letter. He said: "““Clearly—as a ‘release practices’ tool—it will be for the Board, in consultation with the National Statistician, to create the hub. The Government has made clear its expectation that it should do so, and I hope Parliament will do likewise””." Parliament can do likewise by making sure that the provision goes into the Bill. That is our role; we are legislators. Amendments Nos. 10 and 14 will do that. I hope that this House will insist on those amendments. The Prime Minister has rightly recognised that the restoration of trust in our political system is now a top priority. I contend that putting the board and no Ministers in the driving seat on release and pre-release would be a real touchstone of his sincerity. I support my noble friend.