---

Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, the very few cognoscenti of this issue and those who have been following the debate know that we had an issue with what we called the muddle. On Report, we attempted to deal with it, but the Government clearly liked the concept and created another muddle around the nature of the code and the statistics to which it applies. I do not intend to repeat the arguments made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, but I shall say that the Bill as amended on Report contains an ongoing muddle. On page 5, line 18 reads ““National Statistics””; the heading of Clause 10 is, "““Code of Practice for National Statistics””;" but by the time we get to the next line it refers to, "““a Code of Practice for Statistics””." The Bill is a muddle, and we hope that the Minister can sort it out in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, suggested; that is, by setting out that it applies to what everybody in the House understood it to apply to during the first part of the debate on Report.