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Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I am sure that the whole Committee would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, that one of the main purposes of the Bill is to enhance public trust in the statistics that the Government produce, and that Parliament must have a strengthened role in achieving that. We strongly support the concept of enhanced parliamentary scrutiny of the statistical service. The model that we always had in mind was a Joint Committee of both Houses, which would act in the traditional manner of parliamentary scrutiny. It might, as part of that process, undertake a series of confirmation hearings for members of the board and possibly for the incoming National Statistician, so that there is proper scrutiny both of the persons and of the procedures of the new bodies. We have some doubts about whether there should be a statutory commission as set out in the amendments, partly because of the possible conflicts of interest mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, which is a real issue. There is the risk of slightly muddying the waters, which are pretty muddy already, between the roles of the board and of the National Statistician. If you have this very powerful new statutory commission in place, there is a real danger of the roles being muddied further. The other thing that I have slight doubts about is the idea that Parliament, almost uniquely, should set the budget for the statistical service. We agree that statistics are very important in how the Government are perceived and for trust in government. Is the statistical service such a unique strand of government activity that Parliament should have that role? Is it of a different order of importance from, for example, the Government Economic Service, which also has a specialist role in the overall Civil Service organisation? We are not convinced that statistics are much different from many other public sector functions. However, I congratulate the noble Baroness on one aspect of the amendment, about which I have a question for the Minister. Whenever we discuss the possibility of establishing a parliamentary body to oversee and to scrutinise new legislation, we are told that we cannot discuss the matter, because it is for Parliament to decide, rather than one House of Parliament in the context of deliberation on a Bill. Yet here we have an amendment that would set up,in effect, a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament. Why is it possible to set up a commission that includes six Members of the House of Commons and six Members the House of Lords, when, if I tabled an amendment to establish a Joint Committee with six Members from each House, I might be ruled out of order or, at least, the Minister would say that that was totally against parliamentary procedure? I would be grateful if the Minister could help me on that.