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Statistics and Registration Service Bill

One of the changes introduced by the Bill is to pass responsibility for the RPI from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the board. I hope that the National Statistician would be involved in exactly the kind of technical decision to which my hon. Friend refers. It is important, as he says, that those decisions are made transparently and that we can debate them. It is a positive feature of the Bill that it will transfer powers over the RPI and such decisions to the board. It is important that those decisions should be taken, in effect, by the National Statistician. My hon. Friend’s question illustrates the problem that we are dealing with, in that the Bill provides for the board to take the decision, whereas the National Statistician has the technical expertise to do that. I hope that the Minister and the House will consider the amendments, which would considerably strengthen and clarify the institutional structures set out in the Bill and improve our chances of restoring trust in official statistics.