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Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I share the noble Baroness’s concern that any such body should be wholly independent—and certainly independent of government—but I am worried about the amendment to set up the commission. I accept that money for the independent board should be raised independently of government, but the idea of having six Members of each House on the commission, doing that job, rather than being, for example, on a Select Committee to which issues of money and everything else would have to be referred, is entirely different. The accountability to Parliament is right, but those Members of each House would be carrying out an executive job. How else would they do it? They would be working virtually full time, or at least spending a lot of time, on a major commission, seeking to ensure the independence of the board. That worries me. I cannot see how the objective that I share with the noble Baroness would be better achieved by setting up this new commission than by having a Select Committee of both Houses to be responsible for accountability to Parliament.