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Liaison Committee

My Lords, I speak as a member of the Liaison Committee. I was very pleased that when the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, first made the proposal it was approved by the Committee, as has been noted, and was then passed by the whole House some months ago. I also express my appreciation to the Leader for her efforts in getting this through. I shall explain why I regard it as a serious setback for the Government’s intentions behind this legislation. From the beginning it was made clear that the new Statistics Authority—it was then called a ““board””—would have Parliament as its ultimate master, rather than Ministers. That was the whole point that led the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, to suggest this. Ministers would be replaced in this crucial authority by Parliament. That meant much more than occasional questions or reports; it meant that there would be serious parliamentary monitoring, year after year, of what the authority did. That has now been rejected by the authorities in the other place, for what I regard as rather pathetic reasons—at least, the reasons that I have been told. It is a setback, first, for the Government in their original intentions; secondly, for the working of the new authority; and, thirdly, for government statistics generally. It is a serious matter in all those respects.