Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, we, too, welcome the fact that the Government have moved considerably on the norm for the pre-release access that Ministers would have to government statistics. Given that the period proposed fell from 40.5 to 24 hours in the course of a day, if that trend had continued last week Ministers would now get access to official statistics several days after they had been published. However, we are pleased that focus has been put on that period of time and that 24 hours is now being considered rather than 40.5 hours. As noble Lords have said, there is nothing splendid about a period of 24 hours, but it is significantly better than one of 40.5 hours. The key question over these amendments is the one to which the noble Baroness referred—that the principal purpose of the Bill is to restore trust in official and national statistics. For that to happen, the board needs to be seen to be in charge. In virtually every other aspect of the way in which statistics are going to be produced and disseminated, the board is in charge. In the debates on the last set of amendments, we heard the noble Lord explain eloquently why the board would have powers to be responsible for all aspects of the release mechanism. Therefore, it seems to us plain logic that it should be responsible for the most important element of the process in terms of public trust; namely, that it should be seen to be in charge of the rules and timing of pre-release. The Government have given a number of reasons why they disagree with this view. We should stress that our amendments make it clear that Ministers will have the necessary time to meet their needs in terms of what they say on statistics. Amendment No. 13 explicitly makes that clear. If our amendments are carried and the Government want to ensure that the 24 hours are enshrined very clearly, it would be easy for them to add a few words to Amendment No. 13 to state that in any event the period would be no longer than 24 hours. I do not think that that is a great problem; we can deal with the 24 hours in legislation. The Government say that if their model is agreed to today it will be all right because the board can make a report calling for changes, to which the Government will listen. Perhaps they would, perhaps they would not. However, if a change were required to the secondary legislation, noble Lords will know that it cannot be done at the drop of a hat, even if the Government are minded to do it. If often takes a very long time for secondary legislation to be introduced. We are told that there is to be a 12-month review. That is better than nothing but if the problem arises after 15 or 24 months the review will be no help. The Minister said that the status of pre-release requirements would be higher in secondary legislation than if they were dealt with via the code, but surely that is an argument for the whole code to be in secondary legislation, not just this element of it. At this stage in the consideration of a Bill, the role of your Lordships’ House is to make the Government reconsider. There is an additional reason why we should ask the Government to reconsider this measure, which is that, to all intents and purposes, we have had a new Government since we first looked at this Bill. Not a single Treasury Minister remains in the Treasury. When she was dealing with the issue in another place a week ago, the Exchequer Secretary admitted—incidentally, she thought that she was still talking about 40.5 hours—that she had had a very busy weekend reading the relevant papers. It seems to me that if there were ever a case for your Lordships’ House asking the Government to look again, it is now, when Treasury Ministers have barely had time to read the papers, far less to consider some of the arguments in great detail. The Government should be asked to look again at this most crucial point of principle remaining in the Bill.