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Statistics and Registration Service Bill

The Office for National Statistics would primarily be run by the national statistician, because she is the person who is best able to deliver executive functions. The board would also look at the operation of the ONS to ensure that it was held to account. The problem with the Government’s proposals is that the board will be given not only the function of running the ONS and being responsible for producing statistics through it, but the responsibility of regulating it. We would like to separate those functions so that the board could regulate the ONS without being responsible for running it. Such a model would be consistent with promises made by the Leader of the House in a speech made as far back as 1995. It would provide the strongest safeguards and independence from ministerial control. We are also prepared to look at the alternative approach that has been highlighted by several of my colleagues. That proposes that, if residual ministerial responsibilities are to be retained, there is a strong case for those responsibilities to be exercised by the Cabinet Office rather than the Treasury. We do not believe that that would provide safeguards as strong as those that would result from a complete shift to the National Audit Office model, but removing the new structures further from the hegemony of the Treasury would secure more effective independence from Ministers. On pre-release and release practices, the Opposition believe that Ministers’ pre-release access should be radically curtailed.