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Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, and I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this interesting debate. I am of course disappointed, but perhaps not surprised, by what the Minister has said in response. He said that trust was a complex matter, and so should not be in the Bill. We think it is so important that it should be clear and visible for all to see, as one of the most important objectives that lie behind the Bill. My noble friend Lord Jenkin gave the very good example of the crime statistics and why we need the issue of public trust in the Bill. The Minister’s response to that was interesting: he said that the board was just going to concern itself with high-quality statistics, and that was the beginning and end of its role in that regard. We disagree: we think there are other aspects to public trust which, for example, underline the approach to pre-release which is embedded in the Bill that we will send to another place. It is also implicit in many of the other issues that we have debated in Committee, such as whether the Statistics Board should be commenting on the misinterpretation of statistics. Public trust goes way beyond simply putting out good-quality statistics. I shall not press my amendment today but I hope that those who become members of the Statistics Board take the trouble to read the deliberations of your Lordships' House to see what we believe they should be doing to ensure that public trust is achieved and that the needs of a much wider group than has hitherto been met by the ONS and other statistics will be at the heart of the board’s work. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 4 not moved.]