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Statistics and Registration Service Bill

This Bill is about nothing if not enhancing the public’s trust in statistics. I support the principle of pre-release. There are many occasions where government should have informed access to statistics before they hit the markets. However, it is an area where the Government are most open to the charge of manipulating the information if they have too great a head start. Therefore, it should not be solely in the gift of Ministers to determine how much of a head start they have over other interested parties. The Government have gone to the trouble in the Bill of setting up the board and giving it powers. They acknowledge the reduction in public trust in statistics over past years. Therefore, they would miss a trick by insisting on Clause 11, which specifically states: "““The Code of Practice for National Statistics under section 10 may not deal with any matter relating to the granting of pre-release access to official statistics””." The board should have a role in this, but perhaps the best compromise is for the board to be able to put forward advice to discuss with Ministers its requirements. Ultimately, the provisions of the code should be confirmed by Parliament through the mechanism of an affirmative resolution.