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Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, a good number of humorous remarks were made yesterday in another place about those who were new boys and new girls to the Bill, but, like my honourable friend Vincent Cable in the other place, I am not a new boy on the Bill, although I am not the head boy either. I have to give the apologies of my noble friend Lord Newby, who has a long-standing business appointment in Yorkshire, but I am happy to deputise for him. We on these Benches concur, as we have throughout the Bill’s passage, with the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. She set out the current position very fairly. I must say in fairness to the Minister that we believe that the Bill has been substantially improved by scrutiny in this place. It has had rigorous scrutiny, fully backed by the threat and reality of substantial amending votes. It has been a very worthwhile process. The substantial and distinguished Cross-Bench input, led by the noble Lord, Lord Moser, has greatly improved this Bill. I pay tribute to him and to noble Lords on the other Benches. I, too, welcome the proposed appointment of Sir Michael Scholar. I should declare an interest in that St John’s College, Oxford is one of my longest-standing investment clients, so clearly I must not say anything even nicer about him than we have heard already. However, I know him well and believe that he will do an excellent job. We are concerned, as we so often are when dealing with measures of this type, that so much is left to secondary legislation. As my honourable friend Vince Cable pointed out, that is unamendable. If it is defective, we cannot discuss it and amend it. That raises a serious point of principle, which is why we fought to get as much as possible included in the Bill. All that said, it would be churlish not to accept that this is a greatly improved Bill. We have not 99 per cent but probably 90 per cent of what we wanted. I pay tribute to the Government for accepting that they have to take this House seriously.