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Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. I am pleased to open the debate on Second Reading of the Statistics and Registration Service Bill, which, for the first time in Britain, legislates for the independence of statistics. I am encouraged by the broad welcome for the measure and the amount of interest in our plans from both major Opposition parties and the Treasury Committee. The House has a central role in and responsibility for the new statistics system, not only in scrutinising—and, I hope, passing—the necessary legislation but in holding the new statistics board and the operation of the new system to account. In future, the new independent statistics board will have statutory responsibility for ensuring the quality, good practice and comprehensiveness of all official statistics. Unlike the Office for National Statistics at present, the board will be outside Ministers’ control and accountable directly to Parliament. I therefore hope that, alongside debate on the Bill, hon. Members will consider how Parliament can best discharge its new scrutiny functions for the independent statistics system. It is 60 years since the last major statistical measure, which was the Statistics of Trade Act 1947. It is therefore a historic day in the development of the UK’s statistics system. The Bill sets out plans for many of the proposals that professional statistical interests have pressed on us. They include: the demand that we introduce new legislation to safeguard and reinforce trust in statistics; the demand that we introduce a statutory code of practice; the suggestion that we introduce new arrangements for greater sharing of administrative data; the request for tighter arrangements for pre-release access to Ministers and officials, and the suggestion that we develop the system so that it can be UK-wide rather than applying simply to England.