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Statistics and Registration Service Bill

So far I have largely supported the arguments put forward by the Minister, but I am afraid that we come to the parting of the ways at this point. I too, after not having started in this position, have reached the conclusion that these responsibilities should be moved from the Treasury. It undoubtedly has the greatest expertise of any department in Whitehall in statistical matters, simply through the nature of the people it employs—a lot of economists who have learnt statistics as part of their training—but it also has the greatest conflicts of interest. It is a user and a customer of statistics; it is also a producer of statistics; it produces the figures on public spending and national debt; it has an interest in the funding issue we have already talked about; and it has a great deal at stake in the issue of definitions. All these things tell me that there would be a very powerful signal in making this choice. However, I am less convinced that the Prime Minister should be the designated recipient as opposed to the Cabinet Office. Perhaps the Prime Minister might ask, ““Where do I get my advice from?””—to go back to old haunts, perhaps. The Cabinet Office is important for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Moser, mentioned—it has a power of co-ordination. The other reason for making the choice is to recognise that statistics are not simply the big economic statistics—prices, earnings, trade and so on. Increasingly, we are interested in social statistics and the measurement of outcomes achieved by public spending. The location of the responsibility in the Cabinet Office would signal very strongly that statistics were a pan-government issue and not simply an issue of economic policy. I, too, hope that we can make this change. I would need a little more discussion with other noble Lords on whether the recipient should be the Prime Minister or the Cabinet Office, but that is not really the big issue. The big issue is where this responsibility comes from. I support the amendment.