Statistics and Registration Service Bill

Public Bill Committee, 16 January 2007.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I beg to move,

That—

(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday 16th January) meet—

(a) at 4.30 p.m. on Tuesday 16th January;

(b) at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 18th January;

(c) at 10.30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. on Tuesday 23rd January;

(d) at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 25th January;

(2) the proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 23; Schedule 1; Clauses 24 to 43; Schedule 2; Clauses 44 to 57; Schedule 3; Clauses 58 to 70; Schedule 4; Clauses 71 to 73; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;

(3) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 4.00 p.m. on Thursday 25th January.

I welcome you to the Chair, Sir John. I have had the privilege of serving under you on the Finance Bill Standing Committee, as have a number of members of the Committee. For those who have not, I recommend it as the usual channels are always looking for new recruits. Sir John, you take a close interest in general in Treasury matters, but specifically in the Chair you are always fair, and firm only when required. We look forward to your wise guidance in our deliberations on this Bill.

I also welcome all members of the Committee, particularly those on the Opposition Front Benches who have already taken a close interest in the subject, not just on Second Reading but in tabling a number of parliamentary questions to me and to the National Statistician. I am sure that they will contribute significantly to the scrutiny and debate on the Bill’s provisions.

It is an important Bill. Following the independence of the Bank of England, the independent competition authorities, the Debt Management Office and the Financial Services Authority, this Bill forms the next move in the Chancellor’s reforms to set up a system of modern economic governance.

On this day, which marks the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union between England and Scotland, I am particularly pleased that this new statutory system, with the independent statistics board at its heart, will include Scotland as well as Wales and Northern Ireland. That is something that all in the statistics world, the Treasury Select Committee and others in the House had urged us to try and secure, but I think few believed we would manage to secure it. I pay tribute to those in Wales and Northern Ireland who have made the decision to participate fully and, in particular, to Tom McCabe and other Scottish Ministers who have decided that they too want to see these measures and this system to help improve the credibility, integrity, quality and consistency of statistics across the United Kingdom. That is what the Bill is designed to do.

I am glad that we reached agreement on the days needed when we discussed them in the Programming Sub-Committee. I know that those on the Opposition Front Benches and some Back Benchers on both sides will ensure that the Bill gets its fullest possible scrutiny. I am particularly pleased to have two members of the Treasury Select Committee also serving on this Standing Committee; they will bring their expertise to it. Committee members will notice that we are not proposing knives in the programme motion to dictate the progress, but I am determined to do justice to the full Bill, including part 2. Therefore, I and the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West will ensure that the Committee will sit late should that be necessary, although I hope that it will not.

Finally, I point out to the Committee that, contrary to customary practice, the programme motion proposes that we deal with new clauses and new schedules at the point in the Bill to which they relate—rather than after going through all the clauses. I hope the Committee will agree to that element being most sensible, and to the programme motion in total.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

Itoo am delighted to serve under your chairmanship,Sir John. I propose to confine my remarks to the minimum here, since there will be ample opportunity when considering the lead amendment in the first group to look at some general themes in the Bill.

There is cross-party agreement that this Bill is important. If we do this right and amend the Bill appropriately, we could contribute significantly to the strength of, and confidence in, statistics. We will approach the scrutiny process conscious of that importance and in a constructive spirit. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks recently pointed out, the motto of the Italian statistical office is “Statisticum republicae fundamentum”—that is, “Statistics are the foundation of the state”. The Opposition will be working with diligence and determination to strengthen the Bill to ensure the integrity and trustworthiness of those foundations.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

It is a great privilege, Sir John, to serve under your chairmanship. I think that we all start from broadly the same position on the philosophy of the Bill. We want the quality of statistics to be maintained and improved and the independence of statistical production strengthened. There are a great many areas in which the Opposition parties see scope for improvement and strengthening, so we, the Conservatives, the nationalists and the chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks, have tabled a substantial number of amendments. We need proper time to consider them.

There is no controversy about the programming. I think there was an amicable understanding that the Government are proceeding in a perfectly correct way; no knives are being imposed. I am sure that we will be able to conduct our business speedily but amicably.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

I add my voice to those who have already spoken. The Bill is very important and has real potential to improve confidence in and remove the perception of political interference in the production of statistics.

I am relaxed that nine sittings will be more than sufficient. There are no knives in the motion and that is welcome. I was taken by the Financial Secretary’s comments about the 300th anniversary of the Union; this is the Statistics and Registration Service Bill—one would never have imagined that there was a Scottish election just around the corner. It is a pleasure to serve under you again, Sir John, and, mercifully, on a rather shorter Bill than the Finance Bill.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I, too, join in welcoming you to the chairmanship of the Committee. I convey the apologies of two of our colleagues, who are currently serving on the Select Committee on Treasury down the corridor. I hope that my hon. Friends the Members for Braintree and for South-West Hertfordshire will be joining us shortly. That will give us three members of the Select Committee serving on the Committee.

I hope that the programme motion will be sufficient. Such things are always difficult when drafted by the Programming Sub-Committee before any amendments are tabled and before the sub-committee is aware, as it cannot be, exactly how many amendments there are likely to be. If we have to run a little longer sometimes, I hope that we will do so, because I think that the Bill is generally recognised to be very important. A Bill to reform statistics does not come round that often and it is important that we get it right.

I am encouraged, however, by the approach of Ministers throughout the process. They have been reasonably open-minded. I was a little puzzled by the letter that the Financial Secretary sent to my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet, in which he said:

“I am looking forward to Committee, which I am surewill prove invaluable in furthering understanding of the Government’s position”.

That is one function of the Committee, but not the sole function. One might argue that one of the purposes of the Committee is to further understanding of the Committee’s position so far as the proposals are concerned. We look forward to considering them in greater detail.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I beg to move,

That, subject to the discretion of the Chairman, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.

Written evidence to a public Bill Committee is subject to parliamentary privilege, but, subject to the discretion of the Chairman, any written evidence received shall subsequently be reported to the House for publication. I believe that we may be the first Committee to resolve to publish in this way, now that the House authorities are ready to allow for that in the manner proposed.

I and, I am sure, the Committee welcome this modest step in further reforming the House’s procedures, which reinforces the opening up of scrutiny of legislation to a wider public. That may make it difficult in the short term for Ministers, but, in the end, stronger and better scrutiny leads to better legislation.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

We are indeed breaking new ground today.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I welcome the move to incorporate formal consideration of evidence into the Committee’s proceedings. We on the Opposition Front Bench have been in touch with a number of interest groups and experts on the matter, to whose notes and representations we will refer alongside the formally tabled evidence.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Sir John, what a pleasure it is to appear before you again. Were this motion to be passed and given that it would give you discretion, can I tempt you to give an indication as to whether you would have a predilection towards transparency?

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

I am in favour of transparency wherever it can be achieved, but I shall take expert advice on these matters.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

That is most helpful, Sir John. Thank you.

Clause 1

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I beg to move amendment No. 152, in clause 1, page 1, line 8, at end insert—

‘(4) The purpose of the Board shall be to uphold the quality and supervise the dissemination of statistics for the public good.’.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

With this it will be convenientto discuss the following amendments: No. 17, in clause 7, page 4, line 21, at end insert—

‘(1A) In order to fulfil its objective under subsection (1) above, the Board shall have authority to—

(a) supervise the production of any official statistics; and

(b) require any improvements and corrections that it considers necessary to official statistics.’.

No. 191, in clause 7, page 4, line 21, at end insert—

‘(d) the effective use of official statistics to inform local and regional public service delivery.’.

No. 192, in clause 7, page 4, line 26, at end insert

‘and effective use in the public interest’.

No. 194, in clause 9, page 5, line 1, at end insert—

‘(c) have regard to their usefulness at a local level and the importance of coterminosity of data.’.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I, too, welcome the motion that we have just passed. I feel a sense of history settling on the shoulders of the Committee.

Amendments Nos. 152 and 17 stand in my name. I hope that the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth will speak to his amendments, which are very much in tune with mine, and the gist of which I certainly support.

Amendment No. 152 states the purpose of the Bill, which is not set out anywhere in the Bill. That might be a surprise. Clause 1 simply establishes the statistics board, and we do not discover until we reach clause 7 or 8 what its objects are and what its functions are to be. That is a mistake. This is a big Bill, and an important one, and it is rather dull drafting that it does not set out what the purpose of the new statistics board is to be. I rather regret, given the historical importance of the Bill and the infrequency with which we update statistical legislation, that it does not have a preamble. Other statistical laws around the world have preambles, and we could easily have incorporated one here. However, I am advised that, as a preamble has not been tabled by the Minister as part of the drafting, it is now too late to incorporate one.

We can and should set out up front the purpose of the new statistics board, and I hope that the Minister will concede that it is important to do so. This is not simply a Whitehall rearrangement. He has made it clear—as was stated explicitly in the Queen’s Speech—that this is a worthwhile attempt to enhance confidence in statistics by strengthening the independence with which they are collated and published. In other words, the new statistics board is avowedly a public good—that is the intention of the Bill—and I believe that we should affirm that loud and clear.

I have drafted a declaration in three parts: first, to ensure that the board upholds the quality of statistics; secondly that it should have the overarching duty of supervising their dissemination; and thirdly that it should perform both those tasks for the public good. There is a reference to quality in clause 7, but there the definition is more restrictive—it is to promote and safeguard the quality of official statistics. My wording is much more general, namely that the board should have an overarching duty to enhance the quality of all statistics—I have not said “official” or “national” or anything else. I have used tighter drafting, using the word “uphold” rather than “promote”, and I have widened it so as to refer to official, national or other statistics.

The point about supervising dissemination is self-evident: statistics belong to all of us. The board should be under an overriding duty to be involved in their dissemination and to supervise them because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet said, statistics are a key part of democracy. If we believe in more active citizens and in empowering people to participate more fully in democracy, they should have a right to statistical information, which was once the sole preserve of Ministers and Governments.

I would like the new board to adopt a motto rather like that of the Italian statistical office, but we cannot put that into the Bill. The point of that motto in Italy is its recognition that information is one of the cores of the state and that statistics are a key part of democracy. If we believe that we should say so loud and clear.

Amendment No. 17 strengthens clause 7. One of the fundamental criticisms of the Bill, outside and inside Parliament, is that nowhere does it give the new board the duty or the power to supervise the statistical system as a whole. That is a weakness; the board should enforce high standards throughout the system. It is not enough for it simply to be given the power to monitor, to get reports or to publish commentary. We want the new board to be more than a commentator; we want it to have real teeth in all Departments to supervise the high standards that we require and if necessary to intervene to secure them.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak to the amendments in my name. I echo the commentsof others in welcoming your benign but firm chairmanship of the Committee, Sir John.

I am passionate about taking an evidence-based approach to the development of public policy down to the most local level. The amendments are consistent and support the Chancellor and the Government in creating an independent statistics system. However, it is important to make explicit the need for information to be available locally. On the day when we celebrate the Act of Union, it is important to remember that very few policy areas make sense if they are considered on only an England-wide basis. One has to drill down to regional and local level to understand what is really happening.

As a Welshman, I underline the fact that it does not make sense to consider policy for Wales on average either; statistics for Wales only are not terribly helpful in developing policy and service delivery, nor are they very helpful in ensuring that good intentions, at Government, Assembly or local level, match the reality. That has been recognised by many organisations throughout the country, by the Office for National Statistics, the national statistician and Ministers and officials in many Government Departments.

During my time as a Minister, I have been involved in discussions that have acknowledged the importance of making that detailed analysis in order to ensure that public policy is appropriately delivered at the most local level. The problem is that it is easily overlooked. It is very easy for statistics to be produced in a way that informs the general understanding of what is going on, but does not allow targeted action in order to make a difference. I would illustrate that from my own experience in a number of different ways.

Some 25 or 30 years ago I worked in the Ely areaof Cardiff, which is represented by the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan). It is an area with considerable social problems. Those of us who worked there thought that we understood the area. It was only when we undertook a major project of research, kindly paid for by the Welsh Office, and analysed what was happening right down to the most local area statistics, that we realised that there were big variations within the area. We had to produce an overlay of acetates, rather than the computer-assisted graphics that are now available through geographical information systems, and we realised that the way that we delivered services, worked with young people and produced diversion to try to get young people out of criminal activity needed to be much more finely tuned and targeted within the area if the resources available were going to help to deliver the right results.

There are many other systems around the country now, such as those used by the police to identify the needs in their area and to identify criminal activity. One needs to overlay that with the structure of an area and detailed information to understand what is happening and to tackle the causes through policies such as the crime reduction partnerships, as well as identifying what is happening in terms of the economy, criminal activity, social problems and so on. That is why it is important to write in the sort of amendments that I have proposed here.

Clause 7 deals with the objectives of the new board. Amendment No. 191 would add a fourth element to that important list of objectives that have to be promoted and safeguarded:

“the quality of official statistics, good practice in relationto official statistics, and the comprehensiveness of official statistics.”

The board would also have to promote and safeguard

“the effective use of official statistics to inform local and regional public service delivery.”

Similarly Amendment No.192, which is also in line with the Government’s objectives and what the hon. Member for Sevenoaks sought, would insert:

“and effective use in the public interest.”

There is no point having statistics unless one enables and promotes their public use. I am certain that this was in the mind of the Chancellor and the Government in introducing the Bill.

Going forward as a Member of Parliament—I am sure that many colleagues will have shared this experience—one looks to understand the problems in one’s own area. Very often it is not possible to get the information in the form that one wants it. Where that information is available, such as in the House of Commons Library and Government Departments, the staff do an excellent job in providing the analysis. But sometimes the information has not been gathered in a way that allows it to be aggregated to the level of the local authority, the local ward area or to overlap with school catchment areas or with specifics where the comparison is important for those of us who are trying to improve the quality of life for the people in our area. I have already referred to the importance of using statistics intelligently to understand what is happening in an area in relation to matters such as crime reduction.

I had a meeting with the police in my area lastFriday specifically to discuss that issue. Despite the improvement in the way that statistics can be handled and manipulated through the development of computer-assisted systems, we are still not using them effectively. Frankly, I know less about the statistics and the link between crime and other figures in my constituency than I did when I first became a Member of Parliament. That is because the opportunity offered by the techniques is not being developed adequately and because there is insufficient focus on the all-important local information, which can be aggregated up to inform wider public policy.

The issue came very much into focus when I became Minister for Rural Affairs in the later part of the foot and mouth disease outbreak. As we looked at policy on the issue, I discovered that we did not have information at a sufficiently local level to tell us what was needed in the very local economies of villages or rural areas. A lot of that information exists now, and some excellent work has been done by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Professor John Shepherd, who undertook detailed academic work for the Department. That means that there is a much better fit and that organisations such as local authorities and regional development agencies have a much better understanding of what is needed area by area. Some of that statistical information enables us, for instance, to look at the location of post offices in a rural area and to ask whether they are in the areas of greatest need, where closures might cause reasonable hardship, or in better-off areas, where people would, by and large, have the facility to drive to a nearby post office. Those are very much the practical stuff of delivering policy, and the illustration that I gave will be of interest to voluntary and community organisations, as well as to central and local government.

The point that I am making also applies to amendment No. 194 to clause 9, which states that the board should

“have regard to their usefulness at a local level and the importance of coterminosity of data.”

If the basic raw data is not collected coterminously at the most local level, we cannot aggregate up. At that local level, the raw data might have to remain confidential, because individuals might otherwise be identified, but there are ways of handling that through professional scrutiny and data protection methodology. The point, however, is that if the data are collected and coterminous at the most local level, it will be possible to aggregate up to where they will make sense and enable policy decisions to be taken at the most local levels, whether at ward level or within a ward. It would be a missed opportunity if we did not make it explicit that that is the intention and that the board, in looking at quality at a Scottish, Welsh, national and even regional level, needs to ensure that there is an understanding of variations right down to the most local level.

That seems to be a most basic point, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will indicate sympathy and support for it. It certainly fits with the Government’s wish to ensure that delivery is focused and effective at the most local level. I very much hope, therefore, that I will have a sympathetic response to my amendments, which, as I said, look fairly innocuous, but which could make a big difference to the effective use and the good design of statistics if the requirement that they propose is built in from the commencement of the new structure’s activities.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Sevenoaks for tabling amendment No. 152, because, as he said, it goes to the heart of the whole discussion that the Committee will have over the next two weeks. It allows us to address the question of how we set up structures to ensure that statistics are high quality and produced according to a sound and reliable methodology. It also gives us the chance to consider how we ensure that statistics are produced and disseminated in a way that serves the public good, not the political ends of the Government of the day. It is important that we do not conflate those two distinct issues. Both, including working to improve the quality, accuracy and reliability of official statistics, are important, but as former national statistician Lord Moser said, it is often not the figures that people distrust, but the people and institutions that use them. The most pressing issue relates not to quality and accuracy—important though they are—but to how statistics are used, released and interpreted. The key problem that we need to address is ministerial spin.

We must ensure that statistics are produced and released according to principles of integrity and impartiality, and seen to be so. As Bill McLennan, former head of the Government Statistical Service and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, has stated:

“It is essential of course for integrity to exist, but it is also important for it to be perceived to exist.”

Tackling the perception of political interference is as important as tackling the interference itself. Along the same lines, the Audit Commission recently stated:

“A new statistical system needs to ensure robust methodologies to produce statistics, and also ensure that the perception of political interference in the publication of statistics is minimised.”

That trust will never be restored unless we can secure real independence for statistical services.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

The hon. Lady appears to be speaking to an amendment on the use of statistics, not the amendment before us, which is to do with the quality and dissemination of statistics. She is talking about the use of statistics—a completely separate issue.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. I should decide whether the hon. Lady is addressing the amendment or not.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

The term “dissemination” covers the use of statistics broadly, and embraces the points that I have made. We need to discuss the crucial issue of the dissemination of statistics and the interpretation put on them.

Another former National Statistician, Len Cook, emphasised the important role that statistics can play in democracy and in influencing political change. Professor Sir Denis Pereira Gray, of the university of Exeter, has stated that lack of trust in statistics

“is a tragedy and seriously undermines democracy and all governments of all parties.”

The Opposition agree that statistics are part of the essential fabric of democratic debate, as has been adverted to this morning. That is a key reason why reform is so important.

Professor Pereira Gray went on to talk of the economic benefits of reform in terms of the international reputation of the UK and inward investment. Distrust in official figures is not only damaging to democratic debate but can cause grave practical and economic problems. The Statistics Commission has pointed out:

“Decisions affecting our lives are driven by official statistics including allocation of public money, operational decisions, policy intervention, policy evaluation, assessment of public service performance”.

Wisely, it goes on to warn:

“Unless the decision-makers trust the statistical evidence, they will ignore it—potentially at a high economic cost.”

We would do well to heed that warning.

If decisions are taken on the basis of incorrect statistics and if a Government make the mistake of believing their own propaganda, they are likely to take the wrong decisions, with damaging consequences for the quality of public services and the stability of the economy. That is one of a number of reasons why for some years the Opposition have been calling forthe independence of statistics and why we have made the independence for statistical services a key part of our triple lock to entrench stability into the economy. That is also why we have tabled amendments to strengthen the Bill and achieve the overall goal set out by amendment No. 152.

I turn to amendment No. 17. The Opposition believe that it is vital to ensure that the reforms encompass not only the ONS but the decentralised statistical activities in the different Departments. If they do not, we will not have secured genuinely independent statistics, nor addressed the problems that I have outlined. One of the weak spots of the Bill is that the reforms are insufficiently rigorous on departmental statistics. The new board is given the obligation to oversee statistics that fall outside the scope of national statistics, but insufficient power and authority to live up to that responsibility.

Amendment No. 17 would go some way to remedying that problem by giving the board explicit authority to supervise production of all official statistics and require improvements. However, we need to go further than that and seek to apply the code of practice across the range of official statistics. Only then will we have a reform of the strength and scope necessary to restore trust in Government figures. I look forward to discussing that matter in detail when we get to clause 10.

Amendment No. 192, tabled by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth, provides us with a useful opportunity to look in more detail at the use of statistics. If we are to have a world-class statistical system, we need to have regard to the use to which those figures are put. Therefore, it is important that the new structures set up by the Bill are responsive to the needs of users, both from inside and outside Government. Clearly, there will be necessary constraints on meeting the needs of users dictated by the availability of resources allocated to statistical services. However, within those inevitable constraints, it should be the goal of the new reform system to produce statistics that are relevant to important policy areas and statistics that people want to use.

There is no doubt that whatever problems there are with trust in official statistics, those statistics are still used by many thousands of people, businesses, charities and other organisations both within and outside Government. The Treasury Select Committee heard evidence that the ONS website received, on average, 700,000 visitors per month between April 2005 and January 2006.

The National Statistician, in planning and co-ordinating statistical services, should have user needs at the forefront of her priorities. It is important that those needs are identified and evaluated in running the system. It is also essential that both the National Statistician and the board engage in frequent and productive consultation with the user community to ensure that this comes about. I welcome the amendment proposed by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth. I also welcome the fact that accessibility is explicitly recognised as important in clause 7(3).

The statistics users forum has highlighted the important contribution that users can make in ensuring that statistics are relevant, effectively distributed andof good quality. It acknowledged that the interaction between Governments, statisticians and usergroups have proved to be productive but feels that further work needs to be done and that there is insufficient non-governmental user input into high-level planning.

I agree with much of the sentiment behind amendments No.191 and 194. Statistical services should take into account the requirements and concerns of local government. As we have heard from the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth, the London Government Association, in a helpful note circulated to the Committee, state that it would like to see further standardisation,

“collection and presentation of statistical information”

It is important to facilitate comparison of information at a local level so that we can create meaningful local profiles of service needs and meaningful performance standards and indicators.

Such work will inevitably be subject to the constraints of the resources budgeted for ONS and the Government’s statistical services. Nevertheless, within these constraints, it is important to ensure that local government concerns are recognised, particularly given its role in the collection of data and provision of public services, the measurement of which is a significant function for the statistical services.

I hope that the Government will take notice of the concerns expressed by the Local Government Association and those outlined by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth. The amendments also refer to the regional use of statistics, and perhaps this is where I have a different view to that of the right hon. Gentleman. As I strongly oppose English regional government and regionalisation, I am sceptical about this aspect of the amendments. However, the moves in the Bill, which I am sure we will have the opportunity to discuss at a later stage—

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

Does the hon. Lady recognise that whether or not there should be any elected regional government in English regions, a great deal of activity takes place at a regional level? Economic development, transport considerations and a whole host of activities take place at a regional level. Therefore, governance, whether by officials or combinations of local authorities, needs to be well informed.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I acknowledge that a lot of policy making goes on at a regional level, and that should be supported by reliable statistics. However, I would challenge the extent to which policy making should be going on at a regional level, and would like to see more of those policy issues determined at a local rather than regional level. That is in many cases the better level at which to take such decisions.

With that, I will draw my remarks to a close. As I have said, I look forward to discussing similar issues later in relation to reconciling differences in statistical collection in the different nations of the United Kingdom, when important issues arise that I hope will be tackled by the Bill and the Committee.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

I just wanted to say a few words in support of amendment No. 152, and the consequential amendment No. 17. The right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth also made some compelling arguments in favour of his own amendments, which persuaded me. I want primarily to address amendment No. 152. I do not think that there is anything contentious in it. The issue is about having a simple, clear, pithy statement from the outset about what the board is for, emphasising quality dissemination. In the modern jargon, that would be called the mission statement for the board. It is true that further on in the Bill, there is a more complex description of the board’s purposes. Clause 7, in particular, sets that all out in some detail, but it is rather cumbersome and not easy to get one’s head round. I would have thought that in order to save the future board the small consultancy fee that it would probably have to pay to get its mission statement clarified, it would probably be useful for us to do that.

The reasons for emphasising quality and dissemination were eloquently set out yesterday in the press coverage about Home Office statistics. In a remarkable report by the permanent secretary to the Home Office, he acknowledged, rather contritely, in front of a parliamentary Committee, that one in five of his Department’s statistics were seriously defective. He acknowledged that 30 data sets received a zero rating for reliability. What was remarkable about that was, first, the positive point that our system is sufficiently transparent and accountable that the Home Secretary can acknowledge such defects, but what was also clear is that a major Department of State is producing statistics—it was not clear whether they were official or national—that are of such poor quality. They have been reproduced for a long period and used in political debate without any correction. There is also an absence of any mechanism in government for ensuring that that is stopped and corrected. We hope that after the Bill is passed such activity will not continue, and that there will be a much greater emphasis on quality in Government statistics, and better accountability for them all round.

It is absolutely right for the hon. Member for Sevenoaks to suggest that we set out clearly from the outset what the board is for. There are primary and secondary purposes, but the quality of Government statistics as a whole, whether official or not, must emphasise the dissemination and the wider public interest, not the internal purposes of the Government. That is essentially what it is all about, and no harm and potential good is done by setting that out clearly in the first clause of the Bill, in a clear and simple statement of one sentence.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I invite members of the Committee, particularly colleagues on the Labour Benches, to disregard totally the remarks made by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet on amendment No. 152. Although she trained as a lawyer, and talks law, she seems to have great difficulty in distinguishing between two simple nouns, “dissemination” and “use”.

Fiona Mactaggart (Labour, Slough)

I want to speak to amendment No. 17. Although I suspect that its requirement for improvements and corrections is implied in the existing clause, it is important to dig into the issue of accuracy, and the ability to change where statistics are inaccurate. Much of the debate on the Bill has focused—as did the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet in her remarks today—on how people use statistics. There is an implication that it is only the Government who spin statistics. We all know that that is not the case.

Other members of the Committee will have heard, as I did, an argument about immigration statistics on the “Today” programme this morning between my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and somebody from some pressure group. We are used to people using statistics in ways that are convenient to them. We require from the Bill an ability to ensure that the statistics that the Government publish are accurate, and that they are corrected when they are not. Some ability to be confident that their statistics are above that kind of argument is one thing that I believe everybody in the Committee seeks to achieve.

Let me illustrate with an example that I used in my speech on Second Reading. The census figures for the town that I represent are wrong. By quoting from a campaign postcard, I shall show how my local council is spinning the figures. The council’s postcard states:

“For example, in 2004 the government said only 15,000 people a year would migrate to the UK from Eastern Europe.”

That is based on a letter from a Minister that referred to the only research that had been done at that point. There is a question about whether such research ought to be commissioned by the Government. It was undertaken as part of an academic study, and it predicted incorrectly that the figure would be 15,000. The Government did not say, “Our statistical predictions are”, but they referred to the research.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Was it not in fact the case that 15,000 referred to individuals from Poland, not from eastern Europe?

Fiona Mactaggart (Labour, Slough)

My hon. Friend is right. Nevertheless, the number was wrong. It was arrived at for the purposes of an academic study, and it was referred to by Government Ministers, but it was never claimed as a Government statistic. The postcard continues:

“In 2006 it”—

that is, the Government—

“admitted as many as 600,000 could have come since 2004.”

Of course, “could have come” includes people who visited the UK, and I think that that figure is probably accurate. “Yet”, the postcard goes on,

“in August 2006 official statistics found that the number was only 74,000 in one year.”

Of course, that relates to how long people have stayed.

That is an example of spinning. It is a perfectly responsible piece of spinning because it is done in the context of my local council’s feeling reasonably aggrieved by the fact that the ONS calculation is inaccurate. In fact, it does not refer to the case that the major source of inaccuracy is not international migration, but internal migration, because ONS counting in relation to internal migration is based largely on registrations with GPs, and in Slough, 17 of our GPs—nearly all of them—have closed lists and have had closed lists for a long time because they are full. We have a walk-in centre that takes up the slack and treats 200,000 patients a year. In addition, we have a large number of young single men in our population and, as we all know, young single men are more unlikely than other parts of the population to register with a GP. All those factors mean that there is an error in the calculation.

Anyone with an iota of sense would recognise that statistics that say that everywhere in the south-east except for Slough, one of the most booming economies in the south-east, has a growing population do not compute—they do not make sense. It does not require a sophisticated statistician to work that out, yet Slough council, despite all its efforts and the lobbying that I have done with it, has failed to persuade the ONS or anyone else to correct the errors in the statistics. The campaign postcard goes on—

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. We are all very interested in hearing some examples of past errors in statistics, and we know that that is what the Bill is designed to address, so I have allowed the discussion to range widely, but we are getting away from the amendment. I would be grateful if the hon. Lady would be satisfied with the number of examples that she has already given.

Fiona Mactaggart (Labour, Slough)

You interrupted me just as I was bringing it all to the point, Sir John, using the same examples but focusing on the amendments. The final paragraph of the campaign postcard states:

“Despite this huge discrepancy the government still refuses to change Slough’s funding saying it is using ‘the best available data’ to count our population.”

They are indeed the best available data. That is the point. The data available from the ONS mid-year estimates are flawed, but there is no independent mechanism to drive change when figures are inaccurate. Amendment No. 17, tabled by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks, would specifically give the board the responsibility for correcting inaccuracies.I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to eitherreassure us that the Bill will do that or accept the amendment.

The census is not a minor statistical series: it counts the population of Britain and is the spine of many of our other official statistics. If we do not have a mechanism to correct gross errors swiftly, that will undermine public confidence in our statistics. The current arrangements, which are slow, bureaucratic and unresponsive, and which insert the Government between the public and the statisticians, are inadequate. The amendment is one way forward, although whatever happens under the Bill will not be fast enough for the people of Slough. I will not go down that road as you have urged me not to, Sir John. Nevertheless, we need a mechanism to correct errors properly, and I hope that the amendment might provide it.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

At this point, let me say that hon. Members are free to remove their jackets should they wish to do so.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I was intrigued by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet citing the Italian statistical service’s motto, “Statistics are the foundation of the state.” I am glad that she translated it for me. It is absolutely true, but statistics are not the property solely of the state. As the hon. Member for Sevenoaks said, statistics belong to us all. I therefore hope that all members of the Committee will welcome the initiative launched by the ONS last week of a website that gives individuals access to their own inflation calculator. That is the sort of popularising and greater public access to statistics that increasingly characterises their use and the interest in them.

The hon. Member for Twickenham might have been persuaded by the amendments, but I am less so. I was, however, persuaded by the succinct point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West about dissemination. The hon. Gentleman was right to draw our attention to the importance of the quality of official statistics. The Bill is not just about confidence in Government statistics, or Government spin, as the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet called it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Slough eloquently explained, we have concerns about the quality and accuracy of statistics and the need for corrections to be made properly when the required standards are not met. I draw her attention to clause 7(1)(a), which specifies the board’s first objective and provides the mechanism that she wants. I shall explain in a moment why amendment No. 17, tabled by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks, which would give the board power to direct Ministers and Departments, is not the right way to meet his concern. I expect to hear further telling examples from Slough to help illuminate the later stages of the discussions.

I welcome the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth. He speaks from a position of experience of use work and constituency work in Cardiff, as well as ministerial experience at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Home Office. I will give him a sympathetic response, but I hope that he understands my reluctance to accept his amendments.

I will now deal with the amendments and the arguments that were put before the Committee by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks. I pay tribute, as I did on the Floor of the House last week, to his chairmanship of the Treasury Sub-Committee. He self-effacingly waves me away, but the Select Committee on the Treasury has taken a consistent interest in the quality of statistics. It produced an important inquiry and report in the run-up to Christmas, which has helped to inform the Government’s approach to the Bill and I know will do the same for the deliberations of the Committee.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Bill is not simply a Whitehall rearrangement. He is right to say that it is a public good. He encourages the Committee to consider the purpose of the statistics board, but I point out to him that the board’s core objectives are set out in clause 7. In dealing with the amendments, it may help the Committee if I set out the reasons for the objectives being drafted as they are. Clause 7 is the cornerstone of the Bill. It is appropriately succinct, broad and high level, stating that the board should promote and safeguard the quality, comprehensiveness and good practice of official statistics. From that core objective flow the board’s functions in relation to the production and assessment of statistics, which will allow it to deliver. The board will report on and be judged against the extent to which it delivers on that objective, with Parliament playing the central role in holding it to account, supported by the annual report of the board, which it will be required to lay before Parliament and publish at the end of each financial year.

Amendment No. 152 seeks to add to the purposes of the board as set out in the objectives in clause 7. As I have argued, clause 7 already captures the essence of what the board has been established to do. It states that the board should promote and safeguard the quality, comprehensiveness and good practice of official statistics. I believe the objective to be appropriate as it stands. The additional statements proposed in the amendments are unnecessary. I think that if Committee members pause to reflect on what is in the Bill, they will accept that it is appropriately succinct, wide in scope and sufficiently high level to serve as the core terms of reference for the board. Having prompted a useful debate at the start of our deliberations, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

Amendment No. 17 is more substantive. It would provide the board with the authority to

“supervise the production of any official statistics; and

(b) require any improvements and corrections that it considers necessary”.

Clauses 8, 12 and 13 already give the board wide monitoring and assessment functions, but as we have heard, the intended effect of the amendment is to enable the board to compel action in Departments. That would turn the board into a directional body, and go against the decentralised system of statistical production that we have established and chosen to retain in this country. The decision to retain that system was supported by most of the respondents to the consultation and, indeed, by the Treasury Sub-Committee under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Sevenoaks.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

Clause 29 gives the board a directional power in relation to the National Statistician. If that is right for the National Statistician, why is it not right for other Departments? What practical problems will arise from giving the board more effective authority to comply with the duties imposed by the Bill?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

The provision is appropriate to the National Statistician—this is dealt with in clause 29—because under the terms of the Bill, she will be accountable to the board and not to Ministers. That is one way of putting the statistics system on an independent footing and of removing the board from direct accountability to Ministers. The power to compel Departments and Ministers is of an entirely different order. In our democracy, Ministers are responsible and accountable for allocating the resources of their Departments, including those resources devoted to statistical production. Decisions on how to manage the resources and operation of Departments are—properly—taken by Ministers, who are answerable to Parliament for those decisions. Giving the board the power to compel Ministers to take decisions about their departmental resources and functions would fundamentally change those relationships of responsibility and accountability.

The hon. Lady and other Opposition Members are very interested in the model of the National Audit Office in relation to potential reforms. The NAO does not compel Ministers or Departments to act. It advises, audits, reports, challenges and generally equips Parliament better to fulfil its function of holding Departments and Ministers to account. The NAO does not direct Ministers or Departments. In the same way, it is inappropriate to suggest that the statistics board should direct Ministers, as amendment 17 proposes. Rather than compelling action, the transparency of the board is one of the key ways in which it delivers on the objective. It will be the actions and interests of Parliament in following the work of the board by examining its reports and in holding Ministers and Departments to account that will play a crucial role in the development of the system. Those actions and interests will also play a part in the impact that we have designed the system to have on the nature and quality of, and confidence in, official statistics in the long run.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

The Minister makes a good case on the problems of giving a body the power to compel Departments to make particular decisions and to have particular practices. Does that case not apply equally well to the National Statistician? Is there not a case for amending clause 29, so that the board’s focus is on transparency, holding to account, and reporting to Parliament, rather than on seeking to take decisions for the National Statistician?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I am sure that we will deal with this issue when we get to clause 29. One of the functions of the National Statistician will be to head the executive office—currently the Office for National Statistics. As chief executive of that body, as well as the Government’s lead professional adviser on statistical matters, he or she will report to the board. Therefore, it is entirely appropriate that the National Statistician is made accountable to the board by the Bill. We are legislating because it is not appropriate for the National Statistician to be accountable to, and therefore under the general direction of, Ministers, as she is at the moment. I expected the hon. Lady to welcome that element of the reforms.

I shall make similar but less forceful comments in relation to amendments 191 and 192, which were tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth, as I did for amendment 152. Both the amendments would add to the board’s objectives, but, although I agree with my right hon. Friend that official statistics have an important role to play in informing local and regional public service delivery, I do not think that it is sensible to specify that among the Board’s core objectives. The important uses to which official statistics are put are extremely varied, ever increasing and rapidly changing. It would not be helpful to specify some and not others in the legislation, not least because—as my right hon. Friend would accept—we cannot hope for primary legislation to be exhaustive.

In addition to the core objective that is set out in the Bill, I expect the independent board to set out its own, fuller, statement of aims, objectives, priorities and goals in the medium and short term. That would give some of the core uses to which it expects official statistics to be put. I am sure that, in preparing and consulting on its code, the board will take careful note of the comments and debates made during proceedings on the Bill.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I rise to press my hon. Friend further. Unless that objective is made explicit as the expectation of Government and Parliament, competing pressures—for instance for academic use rather than for practical public policy use—may push aside the importance of statistics being available for local purposes. Surely that should be at the core of anything that the board sets out. Is that his expectation?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

Sir John, it is indeed my expectation that the needs of users will be at the core of the direction and decisions that the statistics board takes. I foresee no circumstances in which a strong concern for public policy and public service delivery at national, regional or local level, as appropriate, will not be fundamental to the concerns that the statistics board reflects when it draws up its code, goes about its operations or—as we will discuss later in the Committee’s proceedings—appoints it members, particularly non-executive members.

I make the same point on amendment No. 192. The proposed objective does not list exhaustively all the aspects of quality, comprehensiveness or good practice that the board will exist to promote and safeguard. It would not be sensible to include some rather than others, or to believe that it is possible to construct an exhaustive list for inclusion in the Bill.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I am trying to understand why my hon. Friend regards the subject of the amendment as part of a list. It seems to me that it is central to the Bill. If the board is not to promote effective use in the public interest, who is to do so?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

The central concerns for any statistics board, once it is set up independently, will be the uses to which statistics are put and the users of those statistics. The desire to see public service policy and delivery reflected in those concerns is inevitably going to feature strongly. However, as I have suggested, to specify that in the Bill—to elevate it above a rapidly changing, ever evolving, increasing sources and uses of data—is not sensible at this point. I hope that my right hon. Friend will reflect on that.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I am trying to understand what my hon. Friend is saying. Does he expect the board to promote the effective use of official statistics in the public interest? If he is indicating that that does not need to be made explicit in the Bill because it is implicit in the structure and the requirements placed on the board, that is one thing and I would understand it. However, if he is saying that it may or may not be important in future, that would be a little more disturbing.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

Let me try again. I would expect thatto be a central concern of the statistics board. I am suggesting to my right hon. Friend that, at this point, it is more sensible not to legislate for that matter in the Bill, but to leave it to the judgment of the board, which will, as I have explained, amplify in a number of ways the core objectives and standards set out in the Bill. In setting up this powerful and independent statistics board, it is appropriate to leave such matters finally to its judgment and to the judgment of those who are holding the board to account for the code that they devise and for the discharge of their objectives—in other words, to leave it to hon. Members and Parliament to scrutinise and hold the board accountable.

Amendment No. 194 would ensure that definitions, classifications, standards and methodologies that are developed by the board are useful locally. In many ways, the same arguments apply. Again, under clause 9 the board’s duty is wide, so it is not necessary to specify now the specific ways in which they are to be used. The board will develop those as appropriate and will be able to promote them widely. In developing and promoting the definitions, once again I would expect the board to provide contextual information about how and when to use them, including their appropriateness at local level. I have no doubt that the board will wish to develop definitions and classifications on local and regional issues, such as the regional classifications that my right hon. Friend is interested in, and will wish to develop ones that can be applied and used locally. However, at this stage it is not sensible or right to over-specify such matters in primary legislation. Therefore I hope that he will ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. Can I just say to the Minister, probably for the benefit of the whole Committee, that in respect of amendments Nos. 17, 191, 192 and 194, it will not be necessary for the right hon. Gentleman or any other hon. Member to withdraw his amendment, because they have not yet been moved? However, they have been debated, so if hon. Members are minded not to press them to a Division they can simply not move them at the appropriate time when we are discussing the relevant clauses. We have discussed those amendments with the lead amendment in the group, but they have not yet been moved.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I just want to make one point in concluding the consideration of the amendments, which have not been moved but have been discussed as part of this group. My concern about the points made by these amendments have partly been answered in the Minister’s response; none the less, I encourage him to strengthen the words that he uses about our expectations of the board.

I accept that we do not want the Bill to contain forms of words that are too prescriptive or that, by specifying one requirement, imply that other requirements are not necessary. I understand the Minister’s reluctance to accept the detail of my amendment. However, unless the board is clear that the statistics are going to be used not only by Government departments or people operating nationally or regionally, but locally, it could wander away from the expectations of Ministers and Parliament.

That point particularly relates to amendmentNo. 194 because it is surely a matter of political judgment and generally the expectation of MPs that statistics are collected in a way that allows aggregation that makes sense in terms of analysing what is going on in the communities that we represent not only at a constituency level but at a much more local level. The figures are useful in terms of small area statistics and the sort of work on rural development that I referred to earlier. What is going on under the surface in urban areas is also very important.

I would hope that what is spelt out in my three amendments in this group is something that we as Parliament should make clear that we expect from the new board. I do not necessarily think that these particular amendments are necessary, but I found the discussion useful.

The Minister may find one or two of my other amendments more acceptable. I want to make sure that this local element is appropriately spelt out and explicit. I shall not press these amendments to a vote, but I hope very much that during our discussions the necessity of ensuring the coterminosity of raw data—allowing proper analysis of statistics in a way that is useful at a local level to local authorities, to decision makers, including ourselves, and also to local voluntary organisations, for instance non-governmental organisations—is made explicit. I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will reflect on those points. I might push him a little further when we come to other amendments.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

We have had a wide-ranging debate. It is obviously up to the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth to deal with his amendments when we reach them.

I am grateful for the support that amendment No. 17 has had from hon. Members across the Committee. The hon. Member for Slough was right to draw our attention to the need to deal somewhere with the accuracy of statistics, not least because we have had a whole series of corrections and revisions to official statistics over the years. Poor statistics, somebody once said, are rather like the 13th stroke of the clock, which is not only misleading in itself but casts a shadow of doubt over what has gone before. Obviously there is updating, and there are revisions and so on, but there are also corrections and that is why I felt that it was important to put into the statute some power and authority for the board to supervise accuracy.

What strikes me is that we are setting up this board and giving it responsibility without giving it authority. The way in which the Bill is drafted means that the board is not able to enforce standards. That applies to the code of practice, to the collection of statistics and so on. In response to this amendment, the Minister said something very important. He said, “This board is not to be directional”. That causes me concern. If the board is not to be directional, the only conclusion that I can draw is that, so far as departmental statistics are concerned, we will still have a system run by Ministers.

The Minister tried to pray in aid the Treasury Select Committee report. I have a copy of it to hand. One of the things that we recommended was:

“Although departmental statisticians should remain close to policy colleagues in departments, they should have formal responsibility to the national statistician for any statistics they produce which are intended for the public domain.”

That was the conclusion in paragraph 7. In paragraph 10, on the designation of systems, we said:

“We are nevertheless concerned that retention of this control by Ministers would undermine the perceived independence of the system.”

So the Financial Secretary’s reply gives us concern that a system will be perpetuated, for departmental statistics at least, which is still ministerially run. I am disappointed, because I thought that the whole point of the Bill and of setting up the board was to get away from the idea that Ministers were responsible in the end for Departments’ statistics. That is why I want the board to be given the overarching power where necessary, not to direct or boss around statisticians in Departments, but to put things right where they believe that there is a lack of consistency or a series of poor data. I was very disappointed by the Minister’s response. Amendment No. 17 is to clause 7, so we shall doubtless return to the matter when we reach that clause.

I am encouraged by the support that amendment No. 152 has received from members across the Committee. The wording could of course be polished. In designing a motto or purpose, we all come up with our own drafting. I found the Minister’s response to the amendment rather thin. He said that we did not need to state the board’s purpose in clause 1 because clause 7 set out objectives. Objectives are not quite the same as purpose; a purpose is a higher aim. Clause 7 is also limited to official statistics, which is precisely why I did not include the word “official” in my definition.

I shall press the Financial Secretary one more time. Is he really suggesting that we should vote out of the Bill a reference to the public good? That is what lies at the heart of my amendment. It is the idea that we should put it in statute that the purpose of the board is to act for the public good, not for the convenience of Ministers or even for the benefit of Parliament. I cannot believe that he really wants to reject an amendment that would simply insert the words “for the public good” into the statute. I want to give him one more opportunity to explain why he should.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

We propose to continue the system for statistics established in this country for 400 years, since the Government first started collecting data on imports and exports. The UK’s decentralised system is overwhelmingly and widely recognised to have great strengths. Statisticians are kept close to data suppliers and customers, which gives them a good understanding of their data. They have good working links with policy makers and are given necessary insights into developments and future needs. The system also maintains professional statistics and expertise across government. That is the decentralised system thatwe proposed in our consultation. It attracted overwhelming support, including the Treasury Committee’s endorsement, and we wish to continue it in the Bill.

When I said that directional powers were inappropriate for the statistics board, I drew an analogy with the National Audit Office. It is an authoritative body that no one seriously doubts is manipulated by the Government. It does not have the power to compel Departments and Ministers in the way that amendment No. 17 suggests. Therefore, it is not appropriate to suggest that we should seek such powers for the statistics board.

As I have told the Committee, the board’s central objectives as we have set them out are succinct, wide in scope, high level and likely to be independently developed further by the board, when it has been established and is up and running. That is the right approach. The amendment would not contribute significantly to setting out the direction and purpose of the statistics board. If the hon. Member for Sevenoaks presses the amendment, I shall ask my hon. Friends to resist it.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I am grateful to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury for trying one more time to persuade me. We shall of course return to the issue dealt with by amendment No. 17 in clause 7. However, I emphasise that I am not suggesting that we should centralise; rather, I suggest, as many outside the House have suggested, that the board needs an overarching supervisory duty. If I may say so, it is slightly disingenuous of the Minister to suggest that I did not say that the current system should continue. Of course we believe in a decentralised system of statistics, but if we are to put the proposals on to a better statutory basis, there must be somebody with the overarching power to supervise the system.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Amendment No. 152 is too vaguely worded. It refers to supervising

“the dissemination of statistics for the public good”,

but, although the hon. Gentleman pointed out that it refers to “statistics” rather than official statistics or national statistics, it could drag the board into a role that was something akin to that of the Advertising Standards Authority. If a product was perceived to be better for the public good, say, because it used less energy and the producers of that product wished to say that in a newspaper, the board would have to decide whether that statistic should appear in a newspaper, because a newspaper is a means of dissemination. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would agree that it would not be in our interests to include that in the Bill.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

Yes, of course it is possible to pick holes in the drafting of the amendment, and perhaps legal training helps with that. If the hon. Gentleman wants to offer an improvement to the word “dissemination”, I shall be perfectly happy to accept that. However, the core issue is why we should not specify in statute that the purpose of the board is for the public good. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury is a generous man, so I wonder whether I could try him one more time.Is he suggesting that clause 7 could not more appropriately contain a reference to the public good? Is he saying that nowhere in the Bill would he accept a reference to the phrase “the public good”? Is that his position?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I have dealt with the amendments before the Committee. I have made my arguments and I shall let them rest. If the hon. Gentleman presses the amendment, I shall leave it to the Committee to decide what view to take.

Clause 2

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

It is a relief to get to clause 2, which sets out that the board will

“exercise its functions on behalf of the Crown.”

Consequently, the board’s property, rights and liabilities will be those of the Crown. The idea that the new board and its staff should be a Crown body was almost universally accepted and supported in our public consultations and in the Treasury Committee’s recent report. Therefore, the clause should stand part of the Bill.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Will my hon. Friend tell me what will be the copyright and use position of Crown statistics produced by the board, as provided for in clause 6(1)(a)(i), as the board itself will produce statistics? We had an earlier debate about the desirability of dissemination and use.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

The copyright status of the statistics produced by the board is likely to be precisely as it is for those produced by the ONS. In a sense, the board will formally become responsible for the functions currently carried out by the ONS.

Clause 3

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I beg to move amendment No. 13, in clause 3, page 2, line 3, leave out ‘five’ and insert ‘eight’.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 5, in clause 3, page 2, line 3, at end insert—

‘(c) at least one person appointed by Scottish Ministers.’.

No. 6, in clause 3, page 2, line 7, leave out paragraph (a).

No. 190, in clause 3, page 2, line 12, at end insert—

‘(d) at least one person with knowledge and experience of the use of statistics to inform local service delivery.’.

No. 14, in clause 4, page 2, leave out line 39.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

This group of amendments brings us to consider the size of the new board. We should recognise that Ministers have moved their position on the issue, as they started from the point of view that there should be a substantial number of non-executive board members, but such members will now constitute a majority. That did not, of course, satisfy the Treasury Committee, which was adamant that the board should be fully non-executive for lots of reasons—for example, to ensure that the National Statistician will be properly accountable to the board as the chief executive officer and that the supervisory and production functions of the new board will be properly separated. We may return later in the Bill to consider how we separate those functions, but for today’s purposes I must accept that the Government have made their decision and that the board will have a mix of executive and non-executive members. The issue before us now is what the exact balance should be.

The Bill proposes a board of nine members, of which six will be non-executive and three will be executive. Of the six non-executive members, three will be territorial—I hope that I have used the right term; perhaps national and territorial might have been a more appropriate phrase. Therefore, apart from the chairman, only two of the non-executive members, if they do not represent England, will be properly non-executive for the United Kingdom as a whole.

I thoroughly welcome the extent to which the Financial Secretary has ensured a more consistent coverage across the United Kingdom. That is a good thing, and far more progress has been made on that during the past year than I thought possible. I commend him and his team on that, but I shouldlike to raise the issue of the overall balance with him and the Committee. If only two of the board’snine members are non-territorial, non-executive members—if I can describe them in that way—that is both too few and too small a proportion of the board, and it will get the board into difficulties.

The board must be credibly independent. If the Governor of the Bank of England complains, as he has done, about the quality of immigration statistics and the effect that they have on policy decision makers in measuring the spare capacity in our economy, he will blame the board under the new system. Equally, however, the part executive, part non-executive board might well want to blame the Home Office or some other Department that has collected the statistics. If only three members of the board are properly non-executive, they may well be asked by the public, “Why didn’t you ensure that these statistics were correct at the time?”

If an issue arose because of the quality of the statistics produced by one of the devolved Administrations, the three territorial non-executive members of the board might well be inhibited from criticising the quality of the statistics or the decision to publish or not to publish them by one of the Administrations, because they rely on them for their appointment. That is unsatisfactory; the way to deal with it is to enlarge the board. My amendment would enlarge the board from nine overall members to 12, which would enable us to have five non-territorial non-executives. That is a better number, and it would give a better overall balance without extending the total membership of the board to a point at which it is unmanageable. Twelve is a perfectly manageable number.

Amendment No. 14, which I also tabled, is a probing amendment. I cannot really believe that the drafting of clause 4(4)(d) is as loose as it appears. I have looked in other statutes and found no reference to misbehaviour, which is incredibly difficult to define. In the Ofsted legislation, I found a measure under which Her Majesty’s chief inspector of schools could be dismissed on the grounds of misconduct or incapacity, which are slightly easier to establish.

Under paragraph (d), a non-executive member of the board could be dismissed for virtually any reason at all. He could be dismissed for a traffic violation, because there is no objective qualification of what could constitute misbehaviour. There is not even a subjective qualification, such as that it should be misbehaviour in the eyes of the person who made the appointment. That needs to be tightened up. If we are talking about summary, on-the-spot dismissal, the behaviour clearly needs to relate to gross misconduct rather than a traffic violation. If it means misconduct, the definition needs to be tighter.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 5 and 6, which concern the appointment of non-executive members to the board. The hon. Member for Sevenoaks described the three board members appointed under clause 3(4) as territorial and said that they might fail to criticise statistics from the devolved Administrations because they will rely on them for their appointments. The whole point about the way in which the clause is drafted is that they should not be territorial and should rely not on the Administrations but on the Treasury for their appointments. I shall come on to that later.

I turn first to the helpful summary briefing provided by the Financial Secretary. It begins with a rather short sentence: “Statistics matter.” It goes on to say that they should allow

“people to judge whether the Government is delivering on its promises. High-quality statistics are a key resource for government, business, academia and the wider community.”

I agree entirely. Indeed, on Second Reading, I explained that our difficulty in Scotland with some statistics, particularly some of the economic ones, is that we cannot trust much of what we see. The general expenditure review for Scotland, designed as a political initiative, is fatally flawed. Information is often wrong and can come with so many caveats that a new analysis of the economy is almost impossible.

It is essential that statistics are accurate and based on complete information—I agree entirely with what the hon. Member for Slough said today and on Second Reading—as well as impartial, and seen to be so, as I have said previously. That is why the provision in the Bill for the appointment of the non-executive members of the board remains of some concern to me. Clause 3(2) describes non-executive members as

“the chairman ... and at least five other persons”.

Clause 3(4) describes what appear to be territorial representatives, but they are not. It reads:

“one person who is appointed by the Treasury after consulting the Scottish Ministers”,

another

“after consulting the Welsh Ministers”,

and another

“after consulting the Department of Finance and Personnel for Northern Ireland.”

I hope that the intention is that they be territorial representatives—someone from each of the devolved Administrations—but the Bill does not say that. It states specifically that the appointments will be made by the Treasury.

To improve the perception of impartiality and to rebuild trust—we have heard in many debates about the lack of trust and confidence in statistics—I believe that it would make far more sense to allow the devolved Administrations to appoint members. We should also remove what might be perceived as a blocking mechanism—the Treasury appointments. For statistics to be impartial, and seen to be so, the fundamental underlying structure of their production must be beyond reproach. I cannot identify a reason for the provision of Treasury appointments other than Treasury command and control. I spent the weekend trying to work out why it is there. Does it represent a lack of trust in appointments by the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies? I find that hard to believe. They are made up of elected politicians with a mandate and Ministers with responsibility for their nation or province.

If statistics are to be impartial, and seen to be so, the means of their production must be beyond reproach and any accusation or allegation of political interference. I look forward to the Financial Secretary’s justification for retaining what appears to be an overweening Treasury command and control mechanism.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

On the hon. Gentleman’s fears about political interference, how would that be altered if the appointments were made by Scottish Ministers, as proposed in amendment No. 5, which he tabled? That part of his argument does not seem to make sense. Surely, the risk of political interference would be equally great.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I have been struggling with that because in a sense he is absolutely right—the same allegation could be made. However, if the entire board is appointed by the Treasury—a single source—one might be left with the impression that it was simply refusing to let go. For the purposes of debate, my proposed mechanism applies only to Scotland, but if territorial representatives were appointed by Ministers from the relevant Parliament or Assembly, there would be a counterbalance and a removal of the perception of a merely Treasury appointment mechanism.

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

May I support my friend here? The point that I believe that he is making and to which I should like to lend support is that we need to broaden the scope from the narrowness of the Treasury, which seems to have a vice-like grip on appointments throughout the system. The proposal is a step in the right direction and supports the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks. We need to broaden things out and weaken the Treasury’s grip in that regard. It would be interesting to hear from the Financial Secretary the flaw in that argument.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I am not sure whether I am really his hon. Friend, but I know what he means. He said that the amendment would broaden the scope. My intention was to define the scope more clearly by ensuring that the Treasury could appoint its representatives, that the territorial representatives could be appointed by the devolved Administrations and that there was a clear balance between those who were appointed centrally by the Treasury and those who were appointed from elsewhere, which I think is the intention. The amendment would simply ensure a degree of fairness and equity in the composition of the new board and remove any perception of lack of impartiality in the production of statistics thereafter.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I, too, am grateful for the opportunity to enter the debate. My amendment goes in a somewhat different direction from the ones discussed. I seek to add to subsection (4) paragraph (d), which says that

“at least one person with knowledge and experience of the use of statistics to inform local service delivery”

should be appointed to the board. In an earlier contribution, I made some of the points about the importance of local statistics and I do not want to labour this point. However, I do want to ensure that it is built into the expectation that Parliament is setting on the board for the future, because I believe that the point I am making is shared by all parliamentarians on both sides of the House.

My point is, once more, that official and national statistics are important to effective parliamentary scrutiny and to the development of central Government policy. That is rightly recognised by the Bill. It is explicit; it is there. However, official and national statistics are equally crucial to the effective targeting, delivery and performance management of substantial public resources, delivered and accounted for locally—for example, through local government. Actually, that involves not just local government but local bodies of central Government, such as parts of the national health service or agencies such as the police service.

I referred earlier to a variety of issues such as crime reduction, but neighbourhood renewal is also a good illustration in this respect. As Ministers across Departments, including the Treasury, have recognised repeatedly, policy objectives for neighbourhood renewal and community cohesion can be achieved only if local public and other services can identify who needs help, where they are located and where there are pressure points. I have sat in many meetings of Ministers and many meetings of this House at which discussion of how we ensure that we properly target resources has been right at the heart of how we have debated national policy, so what I am saying does not run counter to the use of statistics for national purposes. It is an essential building block of effective national Government policy and accountability to Parliament.

The amendment is designed to ensure effective local user representation. In other words, there should be someone on the board who understands how proper analysis can be used to inform health services, the organisation of emergency services—indeed, a range of issues that are crucial at the most local level. The amendment would also aid the Government’s objective of keeping statisticians close to data suppliers and customers.

I urge my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to look with sympathy on that point. I am sure that he shares my experience of hearing many people who have an excellent understanding of research needs and statistics for a variety of purposes—understanding overarching national priorities, looking for international comparisons—but who overlook the importance of local data, simply because such data are outside their experience, not in their area of academic research or not at the forefront of their minds. As I mentioned earlier, the ONS has moved in that direction and is, like Ministers and Departments, conscious of the importance of soundly based local statistics and information.

It has almost seemed as if the Financial Secretary were speaking in favour of the amendment, especially in the light of his comments in response to the earlier debate. He said that the board should be able tomake appropriate judgments about the objectives. I understand his point; it is important for there to be flexibility and for the board to take control of how statistics are developed and their quality and excellence. If that is the case, it is important that the board should have something repeatedly acknowledged by Ministers and also important for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland—an understanding of local statistics.

We often end up with lots of discussions about comparisons between English regions, or between them and what is happening in Wales and Scotland, or between local authority areas up and down the country and those across the boundaries. I underline the point again: there is no conflict. All the local government area statistics, regional statistics and territorial comparisons operate well as an aggregation of local statistics. If we get the local ones right, everything else will fall into place. However, it is easy to overlooksuch local statistics; the board could, with the responsibilities that the Financial Secretary has rightly suggested it should take on, overlook the importance of the very local level.

Why do we need to make the issue explicit? All too often when it comes to dealing with data, important issues are overlooked. That is true of the exchange and sharing of information, about which we shall no doubt talk later. At the end of the day, there will be a danger if the information has not been collected at the raw-data level on a basis that makes sense, as could happen if the board did not understand the importance of very local statistics at neighbourhood renewal level.

I hope that the Financial Secretary will acknowledge the importance of local data, and of building them into how the whole system works and into the board’s work. There should be proper accountability for what will no doubt concern parliamentarians, individually and severally, in the coming years, and it should be built into the operation and composition of the board.

Incidentally, I do not seek an increase in numbers; the amendment does not propose an additional board member specifically for the purpose that I have suggested, but that the membership of the board should include an individual with the relevant experience. I hope that the Financial Secretary will either accept my amendment or give an assurance that consideration of my point will be built into how appointments to the board are made. We should be certain that in its deliberations such local issues are fully taken into account and cannot be overlooked.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John.

I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 186 and 187, which stand in my name.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. The amendments to which the hon. Gentleman refers have been grouped with amendment No. 176, which is to be discussed later. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to discuss his amendments now, rather than with amendment No. 176, that would be perfectly proper. I would be happy for him to do so, but he may find the grouping with amendment No. 176 more appropriate.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I will address the two amendments later, with amendment No. 176, but I will make one brief point on amendment No. 14, which is in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks. I agree with his concern about “misbehaved” in the context of what may cause the dismissal of non-executive members. I agree that “misbehaved” is somewhat inappropriate. I would be grateful to know whether there are other circumstances where the concept of misbehaviour is used. It sounds more like something that one would say when admonishing a small child. At least in my own household, the sanction for misbehaviour is usually two minutes on the naughty step as opposed to summary dismissal from the statistics board.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

I want to say a few words in support, particularly of amendment No. 13. I also agree with writing out misbehaviour as a criterion; such language being used in legislation is rather absurd. On amendment No. 13, there are two reasons why expanding the number of non-executive members in the way that the hon. Member for Sevenoaks was suggesting is important. One is maintaining the appropriate balance between the non-executive and executive members, for the reasons set out. It would be completely wrong to have a situation where, either by intention or inadvertently, the executive members, who have a vested interest in defending the policy of their own product, could outvote non-executives, who have been brought in to supervise and oversee the process. Clearly the intention is not that they should be outvoted, but the risk applies, as suggested by the hon. Gentleman, because three of the non-executives are in a slightly separate category. Whether we describe them as territorial or in some other way, they are clearly not open-ended non-executives in the way that one would expect.

I think that there is another, rather stronger argument, which is the importance of diversity among the non-executive directors. To have six would seem quite generous, but since three are pre-empted for appointments by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we are effectively talking about three non-executive directors with a broad background. I am not trying to appoint the board, but I can think of categories of people that it would be highly desirable to have on the board. It would be desirable to have somebody from the commercial sector, who is a major user of and familiar with the requirements of statistics from a commercial standpoint. It would be desirable to have a top-class academic, who understands the methodology and the new ideas in statistical method. It would be desirable to have, as the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth said, somebody who sees statistics from a different standpoint—that of community use. It would be desirable to have somebody with overseas experience; we have seen the considerable contribution of DeAnne Julius and, latterly, Prof. Blanchflower to the Monetary Policy Committee; they bring to bear a different perspective, whether of the United States and the Anglo-Saxon countries, which are similar in their approach to statistics, or of western Europe. That dimension is desirable. It would also be desirable, in principle, to have a former head of statistics, maintaining continuity, institutional memory and an understanding of the issues.

Without pursuing the issue far, I can think of five potential categories that it would be useful to have on the board as non-executive directors—maybe one or more of each. It would be in all our interests, including the Government’s, to err on the side of generosity with the number of non-executive appointments, partly to preserve the balance that the hon. Gentleman was concerned about, but also to ensure a proper diversity of opinion and background.

Mark Hoban (Conservative, Fareham)

I add my welcome, Sir John, and I look forward to serving under your chairmanship, as I did on the Finance Bill Committee last year. I want to add a little to the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks on amendment No. 13, to which I and my Front-Bench colleagues have added our names. When considering an increase in the number of non-executive members on the board, it is important to reflect not just on the diversity of their backgrounds—to echo the remarks of the hon. Member for Twickenham—but to think in this context about the functions of the board and its responsibilities, and therefore what input the non-executive directors need to give.

Briefly, just to tie this back to the basis of how many non-executives there should be, there are three things the board will have to do. It will monitor compliance with the code of all designated national statistics, whether produced by the ONS, Government Departments, or devolved Administrations. Secondly, it will have responsibility for the production of UK-wide statistics where the National Statistician produces them. Thirdly, it will have responsibility for the production of English statistics from the ONS, which may relate to matters such as internal population trends and health care. So, the non-executive directors will need to supervise a wide range of different responsibilities.

Let me also make it clear in this context that, since the Financial Secretary referred in his opening remarks to the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union, it is good to see that the fragmentation that devolution has led to in the production of statistics has, to an extent, been healed in this Bill. It is therefore right, given the board’s oversight and UK-wide scrutiny, that non-executive members are appointed in consultation with the devolved administrations. I suspect that if the board’s responsibilities were purely UK-wide, we might have a different debate about the representation and number of directors. Yet, given that the National Statistician has particular responsibility for the production of statistics in England, setting aside the executive directors, were the non-executive directors on the current composition to vote as one group on a particular issue there could be deadlock. Three non-executive directors could vote on UK-wide or English responsibilities, and three could take a contrary view, reflecting their roots in the devolved Administrations.

We need to move away from that possibility of deadlock between three non-executive directors, who might have a wider perspective, and three appointed in consultation with the three devolved assemblies. I am conscious that the Financial Secretary has said before that it is important that the board does not become too unwieldy, but it is equally important to get the territorial balance right between members. So, as my hon. Friend has suggested, it is appropriate to move from at least five non-executive directors to eight, in addition to the non-executive chairman.

In amendments Nos. 5 and 6, the hon. Member for Dundee, East, expresses his concern about the status of the appointments made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the Treasury, and the method of consultation. He proposes that, in the example of Scotland, the board member should be appointed directly by the Scottish Ministers. I am not sure whether that more fragmented appointment process would help resolve some issues about the production of statistics and their comparability across the UK. I am sure it is also the case that if the Treasury did not appoint the person recommended by Scottish Ministers, they would be quick to highlight that. Such political transparency might perhaps achieve the same ends that the hon. Gentleman, has highlighted.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

I understand the argument that the hon. Gentleman is making, but I just want to make sure he understands the argument that I laid out, where I was attempting to remove the perception of Treasury command and control. This was merely a mechanism. I would just like an understanding or recognition that that was my intention, rather than seeking any fragmentation of the new board.

Mark Hoban (Conservative, Fareham)

Absolutely, and I agree that at various stages of these Committee debates we will come to ways in which we might try to reduce the Treasury’s influence over this process. I understand that the hon. Gentleman is recommending one way of doing so and there are others, which we will explore in more detail later. It is important to get this issue right and I am not sure that the amendment is the best way of doing so, but I acknowledge the validity of the hon. Gentleman’s arguments.

The right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth made an important comment about the experience and background of the non-executive directors. I hope that the Financial Secretary will reflect on his plea for a variety of experience. The hon. Member for Twickenham also said that we need to ensure that the non-executive directors appointed to the board reflect a wide range of expertise and experience. Given the three territorial appointments that have been made, I am not entirely sure that simply limiting to five the number of non-executive directors in addition to the chairman, will enable the board to reflect the expertise and experience to which the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Twickenham referred. There are some persuasive arguments for increasing the number of non-executive directors from at least five to at least eight.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

This has been a useful debate, as we have examined the detail of the proposals. I hope that I can explain some of the thinking behind the size and membership of the board.

The principles we have tried to follow have been clear from the outset: first, sharing accountability acrossa group of individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and with a wide range of expertise will produce better results than vesting all authority in a single individual, which some have argued for. Secondly, we have been clear and consistent in wanting the board to carry out independent scrutiny of the statistical system; there should therefore be a majority non-executive board.

However, in keeping with the practice of good corporate governance, and given the board’s governance role in respect of the statistical office, there should be an executive presence on the board, including the national statistician as head of the executive office who would be the board’s chief professional adviser and the chief executive of that office on the board.

Consequently, given the desire to maintain a small, fixed number of executives on the board—three—and then to ensure that there is always a comfortable, non-executive majority, we concluded that we should set the minimum number of non-executives at six, bearing in mind that it is also good practice to maintain an odd number on boards to allow votes to be conclusive. In other words, there will be six non-executives—one executive chair and five non-executives. We also bear in mind that it is common practice in good governance to ensure that boards do not become too large or unwieldy.

I want to make it clear to the hon. Member for Sevenoaks that the Bill does not specify that the board will be composed of nine members, but that it will have at least nine members. Should we deem it appropriate following the consultations and in order to meet our aims, it would allow us to err on the side of generosity as the hon. Member for Twickenham put it.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

I want some clarification, please. Yes, there is a minimum size, but is it correct that it is the Treasury that would allow it to be increased, not the board itself?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

The board will be appointed on Ministers’ advice. The Treasury will co-ordinate that advice and will consult each of the Administrations in the devolved countries on at least one of the board members. It will take into account the wide range of experience and skills we are seeking from academia, from business, from the public sector at local and regional level, from people with experience of running organisations and from those who can assess user needs and act and take decisions in the public interest. That combination of wide experience and expertise will give the board its complexion and its strength.

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

I understand exactly what the Financial Secretary says, but unfortunately he is not answering a discrete and distinct question from the hon. Member for Dundee, East. In order to restore public confidence in statistics, admittedly through the board, will the Treasury or the board itself be the ultimate arbiter of whether the board increases?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

The Bill is clear that one residual Government function must inevitably be the conduct of the public appointments. If the hon. Gentleman reads clause 3(5), he will see exactly what is proposed and the Treasury’s role in it. It will be possible to increase the number of non-executives on the board, but the Bill provides for the minimum number that would allow for the range of experience that we want.

It is important that the board takes proper account of the circumstances and needs of each country in the UK, not just of England. We have been working closely with each devolved Administration to prepare the proposals in the Bill. As the Bill says, each Administration will be consulted on one board appointment to help to ensure that the board can take proper account of devolved circumstances and needs.

There will be a balance between ensuring that the board can collectively represent the needs of all users and ensuring that it has an understanding of the specific circumstances and needs of the devolved countries. Let me be clear that such members will not be appointed to the board as territorial representatives. It is slightly insulting of the hon. Member for Fareham to imply that those appointed in consultation with the devolved Administrations may have a narrower perspective than their board colleagues.

I thank the hon. Member for Sevenoaks for his comments on amendment No. 13 and his recognition of the way in which the Government’s thinking has developed in the territory under discussion. The board may be able to conduct its business with a cohesive range of members, the group of nine people; but the power to appoint more non-executives will remain to provide any flexibility required to adapt to changing circumstances and to respond to any strong views that the board, in light of experience, or that Parliament, in light of examining and holding the board to account for its conduct and operation, may take. I hope that on that basis, he will not press the amendment.

The two amendments that the hon. Member for Dundee, East tabled would allow Scottish Ministers to appoint one member of the board, rather than be consulted on the appointment. In keeping with the proposed legislation, the board will be a UK-wide body, it will represent the widest range of users and its members will be appointed to do that collectively. They will represent users who may be interested in a particular statistical sector, or in local and regional statistics, and users may come from the public or the private sectors, or they may be citizens, the Government, or indeed, Parliament. The board will exist to represent the public interest as a whole. Those members who are appointed after consultation with the devolved Administrations will not be on the board simply as territorial representatives of those countries.

If we want the board to be small and cohesive, it is ultimately dictated that one authority should be responsible for all appointments, as the Bill proposes. That is emphatically not a Treasury blocking mechanism. It is of course right that Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers and, in due course, I hope, Ministers in Northern Ireland should be consulted on appointments to ensure that the board has sufficient understanding of the devolved need for statistics. Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that Scottish Ministers have agreed to that role in appointments to the board. They have agreed that it is appropriate that they should be consulted before the appointment of the relevant non-executive member. They are content with the Bill and with the fact that it offers the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Parliament safeguards in relation to their role in devolved statistics. I therefore encourage him to refrain from pressing his amendments.

On the points raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth, I have said a couple of times that we want the board to be appointed in such a way that it can represent the widest range of interests in statistics. Its members will do so collectively and by including the interests of those who are concerned about local and regional statistics, and I repeat that the board’s job will be to represent the public interest as a whole. If my right hon. Friend has not already studied clause 32 carefully, he might be interested to hear that it enables the board to establish committees, including advisory committees, on which further external members can sit. Those committees, and the power to set them up, will be important in helping the board to deliver its statutory functions. I would expect it to establish committees and other mechanisms to ensure that it can fully assess the widest range of statistical users’ needs and deal with the concerns that those who rely on statistics, including for local policy making, may have. I hope that my right hon. Friend will accept that, in rather the same way as on the previous group of amendments, it would not be appropriate or sensible to specify in the Bill the requirement for one particular interest group. I therefore encourage him not to press his amendment.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I understand the Minister’s point, and he is close to satisfying me. It would be some reassurance if he suggested, as I believe he has, that it will be essential for board members to have a knowledge of, and to deal with, the local and very local use of statistics—the fine-grained use of statistics that I described earlier. My concern is that he referred to that in terms of one group of users, as if everybody is the same. My key point is that local statistics are the essential building blocks; if we get them right, everything else can be aggregated for the benefit of every other user. Does the Minister expect the importance of that point to be understood by those dealing with appointments? Should the Bill not be amended in the way that I suggest, with the essence of what I propose being incorporated in the appointments process, although not quite in the way that I suggest?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

My right hon. Friend is right to remind me and the Committee that the value of local, neighbourhood statistics applies not only to the interests of a single group of users. He also raises an important issue. Over the past five or six years, we have seen a significant increase in the demand for such data and a significant change in the view of how it canbe used. Indeed, the ONS and statisticians in Departments have started to respond well to improve our ability to collect statistics on a local and very local basis. That trend will clearly continue. The quality in that area of data is still not good enough. The statistics board will be set up independently to discharge the functions set out in the Bill, and the Committee and my right hon. Friend can confidently expect it to ensure that it is aware of that trend and the developing requirement of such data.

The hon. Member for Sevenoaks made it clear that amendment No. 14 is a probing amendment, and the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire had some concerns on the same matter. The hon. Member for Sevenoaks said that he had been looking for precedents of our proposed formulation in bodies with which he was familiar and had not found it. We were working on the basis of precedents in drafting this part of the Bill, and if members of the Committee wish to consult other legislation that adopts the same approach they could look at the provisions of the Energy Act 2004 on the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority or those in the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 on the Office of Rail Regulation. Both contain lists aligned to the one set out in the Bill.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

On amendment No. 14, could my hon. Friend say how the use of the word “misbehaved” is different from the use of the word “unfit” in paragraph (f), two lines later? As a lawyer, I share the reservations of Opposition Members, and I had the same vision of the naughty chair as the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I am not sure whether the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire wishes to table a naughty chair amendment, but I do not believe that any of us on the Committee would regard that as appropriate.

If my hon. Friend is looking for a parallel to the serious potential misconduct and misbehaviour in question and a definition of misbehaviour, he would do better to consider the concept of misconduct rather than of unfitness. Misconduct might principally be held to be connected with the office held. In this case, for instance, it could be interference with statistics produced by the board or covering up information relevant to an assessment decision made by the board.

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

I totally agree with the Minister on that point, but could not the matter be integrated within the reference in subsection (4)(e) to the “terms of his appointment”? It could be clearly laid out in those terms.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

The hon. Gentleman makes a weaker argument than other members. The terms of employment might be much more specific and notdeal with the unlikely and almost unthinkable circumstances that we must nevertheless consider.The essential difference between misconduct and misbehaviour is that misbehaviour can be not just activities related to holding an office but behaviour that could be sufficiently infamous as to render someone unfit to continue to hold office—perhaps serious corruption or violence.

On the basis that our concept is not novel and that I have given him at least two precedents, I hope that the hon. Member for Sevenoaks will regard that as satisfactory explanation of the drafting.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

I can agree with the Financial Secretary that the board should represent the widest possible range of people and that it should fully represent the public interest. I have no quibble with that, but I am disappointed that he suggested that the people appointed under clause 3(4) will not effectively be appointed by the devolved Administrations. My concern is that it appears that the Treasury intends to keep the control mechanism firmly in its grip by controlling all the appointments and the size of the board. He referred to agreement by Scottish Ministers. It would be surprising if Labour-Liberal Ministers did not agree with this Administration at this time.

The purpose of my amendment is to try to release and remove the Treasury grip on the board, to free it up and ensure that there is a perception of impartiality, but there may be other ways in which to achieve that, so I shall not press my amendment to a vote.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I sense that the Committee may want to deal with this matter before it adjourns. On amendment No. 14, I challenged the Minister to provide examples, and he gave some, so I cannot question them although I note that they are from the later period of this Government. However, it is rather odd that he talked first about misbehaviour in terms of misconduct, but when he suggested the sort of misbehaviour he talked about corruption or violence. I do not think the provision is well drafted, but we may come to that later.

On amendment No. 13, I want to make it clear to the hon. Member for Dundee, East that I do not like the concept of territorial membership of the board. If I were a Scottish nationalist and a Scottish member were appointed by the Chancellor, I would find that just as offensive as him. I do not like it because it is a corporatist model. When territorial distinctions are introduced, England always ends up being underweight in population terms. If England had the right number of members in population terms, it would have 18 or 19. It seems to replicate the BBC model and there is no transparent evidence that the BBC has been well governed on that principle.

The Financial Secretary’s basic response was that the board is small but can be increased. However, he then revealed that under the legislation it is the Chancellor who will be able to increase its size. That again perturbs me, and there may be a link between amendmentsNos. 14 and 13. If the Chancellor does not like the way in which a board member is behaving—perhaps because they are being critical, and issuing press releases and so on—he can simply appoint two or three more people to the board to redress the balance. That alarms me, and I am not reassured by the fact that the Chancellor can increase the membership.

The arguments are fairly simple. First, increasing the board from nine to 12 would not undermine its manageability. A board of 12 members is perfectly manageable. Secondly, the Treasury Committee recommended a fully non-executive board. All Iam trying to do is to increase the proportionof non-executives. Thirdly, increasing the proportion of non-executives would send out an important signal of reassurance as the current watchdog—the Statistics Commission is fully non-executive—is wiped away by the Bill that the new board is sufficiently independent.

Public Bill Commitee

Bill Olner (Labour, Nuneaton)

I was sitting in the back this morning when the previous Chairman gave Committee members the opportunity to remove their jackets. That still stands this evening.

Clause 3

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

I beg to move amendment No. 30, in page 2, line 3, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

Bill Olner (Labour, Nuneaton)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 31, in clause 3, page 2, line 4, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 32, in clause 3, page 2, line 7, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 33, in clause 3, page 2, line 9, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 34, in clause 3, page 2, line 11, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 35, in clause 3, page 2, line 13, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 36, in clause 4, page 2, line 29, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 37, in clause 4, page 3, line 3, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 38, in clause 4, page 3, line 5, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 122, in clause 10, page 5, line 15, at end insert—

‘(e) the Cabinet Office.’.

No. 39, in clause 11, page 5, line 39, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 40, in clause 27, page 11, line 2, leave out ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer’ and insert ‘Prime Minister’.

No. 41, in clause 27, page 11, line 13, leave out ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer’ and insert ‘Prime Minister’.

No. 42, in clause 27, page 11, line 20, leave out ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer’ and insert ‘Prime Minister’.

No. 44, in clause 27, page 11, line 27, leave out ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer’ and insert ‘Prime Minister’.

No. 45, in clause 27, page 11, line 29, leave out ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer’ and insert ‘Prime Minister’.

No. 46, in clause 27, page 11, line 41, leave out ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer’ and insert ‘Prime Minister’.

No. 47, in clause 44, page 19, line 6, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 48, in clause 44, page 19, line 35, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 49, in clause 44, page 19, line 41, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 50, in clause 44, page 19, line 42, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 51, in clause 44, page 20, line 6, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 72, in clause 44, page 20, line 8, leave out subsection (11).

No. 73, in clause 44, page 20, line 8, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 74, in clause 44, page 20, line 14, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 75, in clause 44, page 20, line 14, leave out ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer’ and insert ‘Prime Minister’.

No. 76, in clause 44, page 20, line 17, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 77, in clause 44, page 20, line 17, leave out ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer’ and insert ‘Prime Minister’.

No. 52, in clause 44, page 20, line 18, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 53, in clause 47, page 22, line 6, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 54, in clause 47, page 22, line 16, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 55, in clause 47, page 22, line 18, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 56, in clause 47, page 22, line 19, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 57, in clause 47, page 22, line 24, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 58, in clause 47, page 22, line 28, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 59, in clause 48, page 22, line 33, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 60, in clause 48, page 23, line 21, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 61, in clause 48, page 23, line 28, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 62, in clause 48, page 23, line 31, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 63, in clause 49, page 24, line 17, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 64, in clause 49, page 24, line 19, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 65, in clause 50, page 25, line 7, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 66, in clause 50, page 25, line 9, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 67, in clause 55, page 27, line 13, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 68, in clause 58, page 28, line 17, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 69, in clause 62, page 29, line 4, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

No. 70, in clause 62, page 29, line 13, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Cabinet Office’.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

Welcome to the Chair, Mr. Olner. You have arrived for one of the more controversial debates after a fairly quiet morning. The theme of the amendments relates to the residual ministerial powers vested in the Treasury. My colleagues and I have tabled this string of about 40 amendments, which are also supported by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet and her colleagues, to question the location of the residual ministerial powers.

I stress from the outset that I do not see this as an opportunity for Treasury-bashing or bashing this particular Chancellor. As the Financial Secretary pointed out on Second Reading, the Treasury has a good record in recent years of being willing to distance Ministers from day-to-day decisions, most importantly in the case of the Monetary Policy Committee and in financial regulation.

Although there are undoubtedly lots of quibbles with appointments and the efficiency with which they have been made, I would not argue that any of the major appointments, particularly to the MPC, have been characterised by cronyism or political bias. They have all been driven essentially by merit and relevant qualifications. I am not having a go at the Treasury for how it discharges its existing responsibilities. However, it is important to stress from the outset that although the Bill will separate the National Statistician, his staff and statisticians in general from political interference to some degree, substantial ministerial powers none the less remain. A run through the amendments will bring to light how important those residual powers are.

Amendments Nos. 30 to 38 deal with clauses 3 and 4, which discuss appointments. As we were reminded this morning, appointment is not just a process of putting forward names; it is also about ministerial discretion over board numbers and dismissal. Ministerial residual powers respecting pre-release are dealt with in amendment No. 39, and amendments Nos. 40 to 47 deal with powers of direction in the event that the board fails in its statutory responsibilities. There are ministerial powers for the disclosure of information to the board, addressed in amendments Nos. 47 to 53, and by the board, in amendments Nos. 59 to 62. Amendments Nos. 53 to 58 deal with ministerial powers in the use of information, amendment No. 77 with particular powers in relation to the devolved authorities and transfers of property to the board and amendment No. 68 with powers relating to remuneration and general orders and obligations. A wide variety of residual powers will still be exercised by the relevant Minister, in this case the Chancellor, and the Treasury.

Why do I argue that the Treasury is not the best place for the powers? There are two main reasons. The first is that many Government statistics—probably the majority, but certainly a very large part—have nothing to do with economic matters. The Government statistics most in need of quality assurance and the improvements that we expect to flow from the new structure lie outside economics, in Home Office matters and spending Departments such as health and education. There is no particular reason why economic considerations should dominate.

I have spent all my working life dealing with economic matters, whether in the private, public or academic sectors, or in work and, indeed, Parliament. I know, therefore, that there is a tendency if one has an economic training and background to believe that economic issues and arguments are the most important. I am sure that spirit animates the Treasury too, which is perfectly understandable. I am not criticising. Lawyers will always look at points of legal principle and accountants at balance sheets. Economists will be fascinated by economic problems. However, statistics in government are not primarily about economic issues. What seems fundamentally wrong is that the Treasury concern, which is with economic policy, should necessarily dominate the approach to government statistics as a whole.

The second reason is that the Treasury is not disinterested. The Treasury is a major consumer of statistics, and a funder; in both respects there are potential conflicts of interest. Most serious of all, measurement of the Treasury’s basic performance in its primary function of fiscal policy and of the Government’s performance on the Budget and government debt is critically dependent upon the judgment of statisticians. There was an exchange between the hon. Member for Sevenoaks and the Economic Secretary about that. I make no allegations as to whether the Treasury has exercised improper influence over public finance data in the past, but there will be enormous pressures to ensure that people appointed to the statistical board would give the Treasury an easy ride. That is human nature and nothing to do with the party in power or the present fiscal situation. It would be much better if the Department and the Minister responsible did not have that potential conflict of interest.

The question then arises as to whether there is a better locus of responsibility. I think that there is. That is the Prime Minister, acting executively through the Cabinet Office, which has an overview of Government as a whole in a way that the Treasury does not. There are no obvious and direct conflicts of interests. The Cabinet Office is not a major user of statistics in the same way and does not have a funding role. Although of course Government performance is being measured in its entirety, the Cabinet Office has no direct and acute conflict of interest over its performance, as with the Treasury.

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

Will the hon. Gentleman answer a question? I remain perplexed. Is the purpose of his amendment simply to follow the current Chancellor from No. 11 to No. 10?

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

That is not the purpose, but I suspect that would be the consequence, which reflects how generous spirited we are, not discriminating or acting against the current Chancellor; we do not know what will happen in the Labour party, but that he would inherit the powers seems likely, were the amendment successful. The hon. Gentleman correctly said that, although I think he supports the amendment.

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

Another brief question concerns the Prime Minister, who, as well as having a larger remit to his or her responsibility, is First Lord of the Treasury. Does the conflict of interest for the Chancellor also lie with the First Lord of the Treasury?

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

I was never sure about the meaning of the First Lord of the Treasury—

Bill Olner (Labour, Nuneaton)

Order. Do not stray too far.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

I will not. I was not sure of the answer anyway, so you have saved me an awkward moment.

My final point is that circumstances will arise in which there will be a major challenge to the independence of the board. What is important in those circumstances is that the Minister with residual responsibility has the maximum possible authority. There is no greater authority than that which resides in the Prime Minister. At the moment we happen to have a powerful Chancellor of the Exchequer, but that has not always been and will not always be the case. In the future, Chancellors of the Exchequer may be relatively weak Ministers, who will not be able to stand up to departmental Ministers who have been involved in serious manipulation and use of their Department’s statistics. It is important that we build in institutional checks and balances, which are more properly and effectively vested in the Cabinet Office, and through that the Prime Minister.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I am delighted to be serving under your chairmanship, Mr. Olner.

As we have heard, amendment No. 30 is related to a series of amendments that seek to transfer residual responsibilities from the Treasury to the Cabinet Office. It is a matter of some importance because the responsibilities are significant functions in relation to the new statistical framework.

The Opposition see some of the amendments as a fall-back alternative to our preferred model, which is based on the approach of the National Audit Office. In relation to clauses 3, 4 and 58, our preferred approach is set out in amendments Nos. 176 to 183, to which I will speak later. Those amendments would transfer powers not to another Department, but from the Treasury to the chairman of a powerful new commission of both Houses of Parliament. That would provide the strongest safeguards to ensure real independence from Ministers. However, we are happy to consider the approach set out in amendments Nos. 30 to 42 and 40 to 70 as an alternative on a matter that is subject to the concern of many stakeholder groups. The compromise would not provide the safeguards of our preferred approach, but removing the new structures further from the influence of the Treasury could strengthen the reforms in an important way.

Professor A.F.M. Smith of Queen Mary college, university of London, said that:

“It is important that there be absolute clarity in the separation from ministerial or Treasury authority and influence.

I would recommend therefore that ONS be a Cabinet Office department.”

Ruth Lea, former head of the policy unit at the Institute of Directors, told the Treasury Committee that there was a strong case for locating the new non-ministerial department within the Cabinet Office as a

“much less powerful policy-making department”

with

“a ... broader remit”.

Tom Griffin, former Director of Statistics at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, describes the retention of the Treasury link as placing an

“unnecessary limit on the break with the present unsatisfactory arrangements.”

He concluded:

“To sever the link with the Treasury now, and to have the Cabinet Office speak for statistics in Parliament, would be a very visible and important move towards independence.”

Commenting on the Government’s initial proposals, Professor David Rhind of the Statistics Commission told the Treasury Committee that the commission had examined the statutory arrangements for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and how it operated as a non-ministerial Department. The commission did not feel that those arrangements represented a sufficiently significant reduction in ministerial or Treasury authority. That led the commission to conclude that the transfer of residual functions to the Cabinet Office would be a better arrangement.

There are mixed views on the matter. I understand that after much discussion, the Treasury Committee did not support the proposition contained in the amendments. However, the Committee rejected the argument that locating the new Department within the remit of the Cabinet Office would not be detrimental to the Treasury’s ability to co-ordinate and measure a Department’s progress against public service agreements and efficiency targets.

Some of the most serious concerns expressed on the issue focus on the potential conflict of interest that the structure proposed by Government could involve. The Royal Statistical Society, for example, expressed support for a switch to the Cabinet Office on the grounds that the Treasury

“has a particular interest in economic statistics and as a major user is now perceived to exercise influence on ONS’s statistical priorities.

It would further enhance public confidence if the residual ministerial responsibility was returned to the Cabinet Office where it began which would be seen to act as an honest broker across government should any Minister need to be consulted on an issue.”

That is a key concept for the Treasury to consider. Which of the Departments would be the best, most honest broker in reconciling conflicts between Departments?

The Cabinet Office has far less of a vested interest, because it is not a direct consumer of as many statistics as the Treasury, so it is less likely to push the board around and more likely to have a feel for the broader range of priorities across different Departments and policy areas. Lord Moser, the former head of the Government’s statistical service, emphasised in a debate that he initiated in another place that the Cabinet Office’s

“lack of particular subject interest”

gives it

“greater strength over the other departments in our decentralised system.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 June 2006; Vol. 683, c. 407.]

He has also said that he feels that giving it this role would enhance the ability of the new structures to examine issues relating to

“education, health and all the other social areas which are not the direct interest of the Treasury”.

There is a serious concern that giving residual responsibilities to the Treasury, a major user of economic statistics, may skew the priorities of the statistical services towards the Treasury. If the Cabinet Office were the relevant Department, the Opposition feel that there is more chance that the board and the National Statistician would be free to focus on the priorities of the statistical services, the users and the public interest rather than on the Government and Treasury interest.

On Second Reading, the Financial Secretary was anxious to persuade us that the reforms will cover a wide range of statistics. We will debate that later, but the Opposition feel that the scope should be wider. Although we differ on the extent of the scope of the Bill and the code of practice, there is agreement that the legislation’s focus should not be confined to economic data, which are of primary interest to the Treasury. There is concern that leaving the ministerial home of the non-ministerial department at the Treasury takes insufficient account of the importance of statistics on crime, health and education. As the hon. Member for Twickenham has said, that is often where the most significant problems have arisen.

Tom Griffin, to whom I referred earlier, has said:

“Given the breadth of government statistics (health, welfare, education, migration, crime and so on) the Cabinet Office is the only department that can legitimately speak for them.”

If, as Ministers claim, we are to have a structure that covers departmental statistics as effectively as ONS ones, it makes sense to give residual ministerial functions to the Cabinet Office, which has co-ordination between other Departments as one of its primary tasks and objectives.

The Cabinet Office’s stated objectives include:

“Providing efficient arrangements for collective decision making, including analyses of policy and performance that cut across more than one part of Government, and systems which promote co-ordinated action and presentation.”

Its website also specifically refers to its role of brokering agreements between Departments. The website sets out a lengthy list of areas where it performs that co-ordinating function, for example on e-government, social exclusion, drugs policy, women’s equality and regulatory impact. Professor David Rhind told the Treasury Sub-Committee that a switch to the Cabinet Office would

“assist with coherent planning to meet future statistical requirements.”

Its expertise across Departments would assist in such coherent planning.

Aside from ensuring that the non-ministerial Department and the board are free to set their own priorities, another more important aspect of this is ensuring that the board and the ONS have someone to fight their corner in negotiating with the Treasury on funding. Getting funding arrangements right is, of course, crucial in ensuring that the Bill is successful in granting real independence to statistics. I imagine that there is cross-party agreement on that. We believe that our parliamentary model would solve the problem, with funding determined by a direct parliamentary vote. However, we are examining this proposal as a compromise and fall-back option, and the issue is important in that context.

Everyone is aware of the struggles between Ministers and the Treasury during the funding round. Under the Bill, Treasury Ministers would effectively be negotiating with themselves when it comes to funding arrangements for statistical services. Yes; presumably the board and the National Statistician would have something to say about funding but, if residual ministerial responsibilities are to remain part of the new structure, surely the statistical services deserve a Minister from a different Department to argue their case with the Treasury. Such arguments can be advanced effectively only if they come from a Department outside the Treasury.

Inextricably linked with the debate is the role of the Prime Minister, which has been alluded to already. It is important that the National Statistician has direct regular access to the Prime Minister. I hope that such access is envisaged by the Government, even though it is not stated in the Bill. If the reforms are to succeed in the way in which both Government and Opposition Members want them to succeed, they will need to have political will behind them, and they will need to operate in a way that builds up the authority and political clout of the board and the National Statistician. Ensuring that the National Statistician has direct access to the Prime Minister will play a key part in that strategy, which is another reason why the transfer of responsibilities from the Chancellor to the Prime Minister will help to build and strengthen proposals for independence.

Len Cook, former head of the government statistical service, has said:

“Almost all of the current concerns involve departments where only the Prime Minister has the authority to challenge Ministers, so the Prime Minister needs to have his existing contingent involvement still recognised.”

That issue certainly seems to be at the heart of Lord Moser’s wish to see the Cabinet Office holding the relevant functions that we are discussing. He said to the Treasury Committee:

“In the old days—and I do not say in the good old days, because lots of things are much better now than they were then—the reporting line was through the Cabinet Office to the Prime Minister. This is a very real link. I served three Prime Ministers. I would see the Prime Minister quite regularly and he would take serious interest. That obviously was a great strength, especially vis-Ã -vis other departments. So it was much less difficult to influence other ministries when it was known that behind me was the Prime Minister.”

Lord Moser considers that, since the switch of responsibility for the ONS from the Cabinet Office to the Treasury, the direct link with the Prime Minister has been broken.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Will the hon. Lady say whether the issue is really about whoever is running statistics influencing the Government, or is it about the Government influencing those who are running statistics? It seems that the latter point is much more important.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

In this context, it is important to ensure that statisticians have independence, but, when the National Statistician needs to stand up to a particular Department, having direct prime ministerial backing will bolster them in ensuring that good practice is adhered to. It will help to give authority to the new structures if the National Statistician is seen to have the Prime Minister’s support.

Having read the Hansard report of the announcement of the changes that made the transfer to the Treasury, the Prime Minister of the day envisaged that the National Statistician would continue to have access on the validity and integrity of Government statistics. It would be useful to receive clarification from the Financial Secretary on that matter to ensure that the worries of the National Statistician are heard at the highest level of the Government. For example, how often does the National Statistician see the Prime Minister? Does she have access when she needs it? The amendments that would transfer functions to the Cabinet Office would give a visible signal that the National Statistician has that political backing from the Prime Minister, and that would represent an important improvement in the new framework.

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

We have heard, and rightly so, from the hon. Member for Twickenham that the Treasury is the greatest producer and user of statistics, and that it should be removed completely from its influence over the board. My hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet has made the point that only parliamentary scrutiny and approval of appointments to the board will give the board the necessary legitimacy in the public’s eyes.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

That is the next set of amendments.

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

Is it?

The matter concerns the lack of confidence that the public have in those figures. I want to repeat the point that the Financial Secretary made on Second Reading:

“The House has a central role in and responsibility for the new statistics system”.—[Official Report, 8 January 2007; Vol. 455, c. 23.]

That statement will be true, however, only if the new commission which our amendments would establish comes into being.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Olner. I want to make a brief point. I am sympathetic to the views expressed by the hon. Member for Twickenham and my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet. I am a member of the Treasury Committee, which has considered the issue. The Committee concluded that the Treasury should remain a residual Department in this context, but the decision was finely balanced. I must admit that my sympathies lean towards the idea of the Cabinet Office being responsible for the matter.

A starting point is the question whether the Treasury is a major user of statistics. In his evidence to the Treasury Sub-Committee on 14 June, in answer to my question 255, which is set out on page 45 of the evidence in the report of the Treasury Committee, the Financial Secretary made the case that one reason for considering the Treasury to be the correct residual body is the fact that, although many Departments produce statistics that fall within the definition of national statistics, economic statistics are generally of greater importance and frequency than those produced by other Departments. The point that economic statistics are very important is central to his case.

I think that the Financial Secretary is right to say that Office for National Statistics economic statistics are more important than many of the departmental statistics, but that argument leads in a slightly dangerous direction with regard to the Government’s stance on the Bill as a whole. One of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet on Second Reading was that the area most affected by the Bill will be statistics produced by the ONS, which, as Lord Moser has pointed out, is the part of the statistical system in need of the least reform.

The Financial Secretary’s response on Second Reading was:

“It is wrong to assert that the Bill or National Statistics focuses principally on what the ONS produces. The ONS is responsible for approximately 250 national statistics. That leaves a little more than 1,000 national statistics that are produced elsewhere in Government and will be subject to the code”.—[Official Report, 8 January 2007; Vol. 455, c. 44.]

It seems to me that there is a contradiction in claiming on the one hand that ONS statistics will be the least affected by the Bill, and on the other that, effectively, ONS economics statistics are the most important, because they are both important and frequent.

None the less, if we accept that the Treasury is the principal user of statistics, we can be led in one of two directions. We could argue that the Treasury is indeed the most closely involved; on the other hand, the hon. Member for Twickenham has expressed the view that that is an argument for the Treasury’s not being involved. Without impugning the honesty of the present Treasury, or its predecessors or successors, part of the point of the Bill is ensuring a perception of independence and a lack of political interference in statistics. The bigger the gap that can be created between the Department that is being assessed or scrutinised by the statistics and the producers of statistics, the greater the perception of independence, which seems to be a strong and powerful argument. Even accepting the position of the Financial Secretary that the important statistics are Treasury-related, it seems to be an argument for switching the residual powers back to the Cabinet Office, as was the case until 1989.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I reiterate the Committee’s welcome to you, Mr. Olner. I, too, support amendment No. 30. It is true that the Treasury Committee recommended that, on balance, the responsibilities should remain with the Treasury. However, the arguments were finely balanced. There is no finer example of that than the evidence that we took from the Financial Secretary himself on 14 June, when we pursued that point with him. He told the Committee:

“Without being hard and fast about it, therefore, it seems to me sensible to leave with the Treasury whatever residual responsibilities need to be with ministers. As I say, however, we will examine the views that come in through the consultation.”

So I do not think that this is some great issue of principle. Seven months ago, the Financial Secretary accepted that the arguments were reasonably balanced. The Committee went on to say:

“However, if HM Treasury is to retain residual responsibility for the new department, we recommend that the Government consider carefully how it will demonstrate that its proposals will result in a genuinely independent statistics office. What is important is that the new department should be perceived to be more independent than the present arrangement.”

Given that it is not an argument of principle, that is the test that the Financial Secretary has to meet in coming to his preference in the legislation for the Treasury to retain the residual responsibilities. His problem is that, on the face of it, little has changed. The Chancellor appoints the board and the Chancellor sets its funding. That is the current position and it is the arrangement proposed in the Bill.

The Financial Secretary generously offered to weigh up the consultation and outside views. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet has illustrated, overwhelmingly opinion outside this House among users, academics and those professionally involved in statistics is that it would be better to put the residual responsibility with the Cabinet Office. I take a slightly different view. My conclusion is that there is nothing wrong, per se, with that responsibility staying with the Treasury, and there is nothing particularly preferable about moving it to the Cabinet Office. However, the attraction of the amendment is that it would at least be moved to a Department other than the one that has the responsibility at the moment—it is a different arrangement. We would be demonstrating that we are making a difference, thereby increasing the perception that the statistics office will be more independent than its predecessor.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

I shall be brief. This is essentially a question for the Financial Secretary. On Second Reading, in response to a question from the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), he said:

“He is right to point out that this is indeed the next step in the Chancellor’s reforms of the machinery of economic governance”.—[Official Report, 8 January 2007; Vol. 455, c. 25.]

Given that that is the natural and understandable focus of a Treasury Minister, is there not a real risk that other, non-economic, statistics will be given less prominence than they should have? That is a simple question, but it summarises a large amount of what we have heard in the past 25 minutes or so, and I should be grateful if the Financial Secretary would put our minds at rest and say that that will not happen, given that it is anticipated that the residual responsibilities will remain with the Treasury.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Olner; it is a pleasure to serve under you this afternoon and for the rest of the Committee’s proceedings. I pay tribute to the way in which the hon. Member for Twickenham moved the amendment. He set a constructive tone and avoided allowing this debate to become a simple Treasury-bashing exercise.

The Committee has debated what is a serious set of issues and, as the hon. Member for Sevenoaks and the Treasury Committee both recognised, a set of questions about which there are arguments on both sides. My view, as reflected in the legislation, remains as it was when I gave evidence to the Treasury Committee, which is that it is sensible for the residual functions for Ministers under the Bill—and they are residual functions—to remain with the Treasury. The key point in countering that seems to be that retaining ministerial responsibility for the board within the Treasury risks undermining public confidence, in so far as the Treasury, with its particular policy responsibilities, has a special interest in economic statistics, of which it is a major user. In contrast, some of the advocates of change point out that the Cabinet Office does not produce statistics, is not directly a heavy user of statistics and therefore does not have an axe to grind. Some argue that the Cabinet Office might be better placed to take on the residual, but nevertheless important co-ordinating role, in relation to the Government’s responsibilities for and interest in the reformed system.

Three members of the Treasury Committee are serving on our Committee this afternoon. As the Treasury Committee concluded in its report:

“On balance ... the residual responsibilities”

for the board

“should remain with HM Treasury”.

The Treasury Committee noted that the residual responsibilities for Ministers were likely to be limited, and came to the view that the precise location of the new Department was not particularly important, but that it should remain with the Treasury. The Government agree with that, and that is the approach that we are taking.

The important issue is not so much where the residual ministerial responsibilities sit—although I shall explain why the best solution is for them to remain with the Treasury—but the point to which my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West alluded in his intervention. Our intention is to create a strong independent board, and therefore to remove some of the arguments that the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet made about Ministers in the future, although I shall return to those, too. If the legislation is effective, the question of which Department holds the residual ministerial responsibilities will be of much lesser importance.

Whatever arrangements we contemplate and regardless of which Ministers have residual responsibilities for the board, it is an inescapable fact that the Treasury will always—and rightly—have a role in funding. We have therefore constructed a funding arrangement for the board that, as far as possible, reinforces the independence and freedoms of the board, while retaining—quite rightly, from the public interest point of view—safeguards for value for money, efficiency and spending control. Consequently, I confirmed on Second Reading that the board would benefit from a special arrangement, under which its funding will be set on a five-year basis and will not be determined through the regular pattern of Government spending reviews. Whatever other arrangements are made, funding is one area in which the Treasury will have a continuing involvement and interest with the board and the new system.

The few responsibilities that will remain with Ministers and the Treasury under the new regime are making appointments and maintaining the interface with Parliament, which includes tabling secondary legislation, laying the board’s annual account formally before Parliament and acting as a conduit—as we do currently—for parliamentary questions that are answered by the board or by the National Statistician. Finally, in extremis only, the Chancellor will also have a responsibility to issue directions to the board under the terms of clause 27.

Why do I suggest that the approach in the Bill is the right one and that the residual responsibilities that remain for Ministers are best and most sensibly left with the Minister in the Treasury? The case is as follows. The Treasury clearly does not currently skew the ONS’s priorities towards its own interests and therefore nor would it seek to influence the board in a similar way. The hon. Member for Twickenham opened this afternoon’s debate in Committee by saying that the Treasury has had a good record in distancing Ministers from day-to-day decisions.

Let me turn to the arguments that the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet tried to make. This is the second area of argument that suggests we lead with the Treasury. I have to say that she got it wrong when she argued that the board or the National Statistician somehow need a strong Minister or Department to argue their case with the Treasury. The purpose of the reform is to remove the need for Ministers to argue their case within Government.

Even if that were a legitimate concern, I would urge the hon. Lady to read the remarks of Lord Turnbull—the former Cabinet Secretary—in the House of Lords debate in which, in supporting the proposal that the responsibilities remain with the Treasury, he commented about the Cabinet Office that

“that department has had seven Ministers in four years, and something like nine months in which it did not have a senior Minister at all.”

If the hon. Lady is looking for a strong Department to argue for the statistics board with the Treasury, I would suggest that she look elsewhere.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

The point was not based on the relative strengths of the Cabinet Office and the Treasury. Of course the Treasury is a much more powerful Department than the Cabinet Office. The point that I was making is that it is important for statistical services to have a voice external to the Cabinet Office within Government to argue its case for funding. Yes, the Minister is planning to put in place arrangements for funding that are not conventional and are slightly different. However, there will still be negotiation. Therefore, presumably there should also still be a Minister who is able to argue on the same side as the board and the National Statistician.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I think that the hon. Lady meant a voice outside the Treasury, not outside the Cabinet Office. The point of the reforms—and putting the new system and the board at arm’s length with Ministers—is that they are not dependent on Ministers arguing their case for them in the normal spending review rounds and that the board itself will have special funding arrangements for its money and other resources.

I should like to suggest the following points to the Committee. Given that the board should be strong enough not to have its strategic priorities skewed by the Department in which the residual ministerial responsibility resides, in addition, the board could benefit from having the Treasury as its link with Government. The Treasury, from the point of view of co-ordinating Government interest in statistics, has a long experience of working with and of understanding statistics. It has a crucial role in co-ordinating the reporting of Government performance and monitoring that across Government.

Therefore, I strongly disagree with one of the points that the hon. Member for Twickenham made, which seemed to suggest that the Treasury was principally or only interested in economic statistics. More than perhaps any other Department, it has an interest in maintaining a good evidence basis, which includes statistics on departmental policies, given the significance of statistics in reporting on departmental performance and understanding the levers for successful reform and the development of public services in which the Treasury has inevitably and increasingly taken an important co-ordinating role.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I want to return to the point about funding. I do not think that the Financial Secretary is arguing that there will be no ministerial involvement at all. Of course, the arrangement is special—the review will take place every five years, rather than every three years or annually, and we welcome that—but the BBC has to have somebody to argue with the Treasury. Presumably, every five years the Treasury Minister with residual responsibility will have to support the board in the case that it makes to the Chief Secretary. Will that not be the position?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

That would depend on which Minister had residual responsibility for the statistics system in the Treasury. The important point is that the statistics board, which is on a separate and special footing outside the normal Government monitoring process, will be in a powerful position to make its own arguments and its own case. Clearly, Parliament will have a view as part of its role in judging and assessing the system’s performance. However, the board and those who are interested in the resources of the statistical system are likely to be in a far stronger position when the five-yearly settlement comes up for renewal if they have direct meetings with the Treasury, rather than playing their arguments through the intermediary of some other Department. That would not be necessary or to the advantage of the board and those who are interested in ensuring that it and the system are strong, significantly independent and authoritative.

Mark Hoban (Conservative, Fareham)

Would the Financial Secretary characterise the relationship between the ONS and the Treasury as regards funding as good? The impression that one gets from the evidence of the Public and Commercial Services Union to the Treasury Committee is that there is actually a very poor relationship between the ONS and the Treasury as regards funding. There have certainly been critical comments about some of the savings targets that the ONS has agreed with the Treasury, and reference has been made to being over-stretched. It appears that there is not a good relationship as regards funding at the moment. Does the Financial Secretary concur with the PCS’s view of that relationship?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

No Minister would entirely concur with the PCS’s view of the adequacy of funding or of the plans for the central Government work force—that is the PCS’s job. In the 15 or 18 months that I have been Minister with responsibility for the ONS, I have played an active role, which has had a beneficial impact on the ONS and the resources available to it in that time. On one or two occasions, I have been able to convince my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary that there is a case for special additional resources. If the hon. Gentleman is interested in judgments on the funding relationship with the ONS, he should probably ask that question elsewhere.

Given the background that I have set out, the Treasury is well placed to play a constructive and co-ordinating role in respect of its residual responsibilities towards the board. Ruth Lea, the director of the Centre for Policy Studies, set out quite openly her reasons for wanting the Cabinet Office to be in charge. As the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet noted, she said that there was

“a very, very strong case”

for locating the new non-ministerial department in the Cabinet Office because it was

“a much less powerful policy-making department”

than the Treasury. If the objective of some, including perhaps Ruth Lea, is to find one of the weaker locations in the Government for these responsibilities, I would suggest that that does not pay due respect to the importance of the statistical system. Such a move may be attractive to some, but I do not think that it would benefit the board or strengthen the reformed statistical system. Following consultation and the report by the Treasury Committee, therefore, I have concluded, as the hon. Member for Sevenoaks suggested, that the Treasury, not the Cabinet Office or another Department, is the appropriate place for these residual responsibilities.

I hope that our debate on this group of amendments has been useful and that the hon. Gentleman will ask leave to withdraw his amendment.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

I certainly concur with the Minister’s last remark. There have been some good, helpful interventions. The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet developed many of the key arguments in more detail than I did. She also reminded us that there are various options, not just the two that we are exploring. We have not yet considered what will now and for ever be known as the Mongolian option—although I do not want to belittle it—which has a good deal of appeal and is still in play.

The contribution of the hon. Member for Sevenoaks was particularly important, because he played a key role in the Treasury Committee report, which had not decided against the option of using the Cabinet Office as the point of reference. He helpfully reminded us that that Committee’s recommendation was not only finely balanced, but was predicated on certain assumptions about how the legislation would be framed and would give greater strength to ministerial statisticians than the current legislation does. It would work similarly in other respects, too. As the hon. Gentleman has reminded us, it is not helpful to take the conclusion of the Treasury Committee out of context. His punch line, which was original, was that shifting responsibility from the Treasury to somewhere else credible would be quite a powerful statement of independence.

In his response, the Minister quoted various external sources of opinion, which we need to heed. I have particular respect for Sir Andrew Turnbull, because we started our professional lives together four decades ago in east Africa, trying to improve the quality of economic statistics there. So we have been over this ground before. He was taken slightly out of context, because whereas it may be true that there has been a rapid turnover of permanent parliamentary under-secretaries and Ministers of State in the Cabinet Office, the key point is that its political authority rests on the Prime Minister. This Prime Minister has been in office for the longest time in recent history, so whatever the current problems are they are not to do with turnover in relation to its authority. The same point could be made in respect of Ruth Lea. The issue is not the Cabinet Office as a relatively modest civil service department, but the political head of the Cabinet Office, who is the Prime Minister.

The Minister was open minded, as all Committee members have been, in accepting that there are other options. He was fair minded in acknowledging that there are pros and cons. His key argument, as I understand it, is that because the board will be independent it does not matter which Department has the residual powers. However, although it is independent up to a point, the Minister makes the key appointments. We need a source of authority whose appointments are clearly and totally disinterested. The present arrangements do not seem to be the optimum.

To bring my remarks to a conclusion, I am not proposing to put the amendment to a vote. It is not that I am satisfied with the answers, because I am not. However, this issue requires further debate and exchange. There are quite a few ex-Ministers on both sides of the House who will want to pool their experiences of different Departments dealing with statistics. People in the other place have a great deal of direct experience. Lord Moser is the obvious person, because he operated under a system where the Cabinet Office had authority. It is important that those arguments are heard before we come to closure. In that context, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Mark Hoban (Conservative, Fareham)

I beg to move amendment No. 176, in page 2, line 3, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Chairman of the Commission’.

Bill Olner (Labour, Nuneaton)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 177, in page 2, line 4, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Chairman of the Commission’.

No. 186, in page 2, line 5, at end insert—

‘(3A) No appointment shall be made under subsection (2) until it has been approved by the Commission established under section (Establishment of a Commission for Official Statistics).’.

No. 187, in page 2, line 5, at end insert—

‘(3A) Appointments made under subsection (2) shall be subject to review by the Commission established under section (Establishment of a Commission for Official Statistics) within one year of their having been made.

(3B) The Commission shall produce a report on any review carried out under subsection (3A) and shall lay it before each House of Parliament.’.

No. 178, in page 2, line 7, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Chairman of the Commission’.

No. 179, in page 2, line 9, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Chairman of the Commission’.

No. 180, in page 2, line 11, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Chairman of the Commission’.

No. 181, in clause 4, page 2, line 29, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Chairman of the Commission’.

No. 182, in clause 4, page 3, line 3, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Chairman of the Commission’.

No. 183, in clause 58, page 28, line 17, leave out ‘Treasury’ and insert ‘Chairman of the Commission’.

New clause 2—Establishment of a Commission for Official Statistics—

‘(1) There shall be a commission name the Commission for Official Statistics (in this Act referred to as “the Commission”) for the examination of the production, release and presentation of official statistics.

(2) The Commission shall consist of six members of the House of Commons appointed by the House of Commons and six Members of the House of Lords appointed by the House of Lords, none of whom shall be a Minister of the Crown.

(3) The Commission shall, from time to time, present to each House of Parliament a report on the exercise of its functions.

(4) Schedule (Commission for Official Statistics) to this Act shall have effect as regards the Commission.’.

New schedule 1—

‘Schedule 1A

Commission for Official Statistics

None

Mark Hoban (Conservative, Fareham)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Olner.

In his closing remarks on the previous group of amendments, the hon. Member for Twickenham said that other models were available. He called the one that we are discussing the Mongolian model; that would establish a structure similar to that of the NAO asa means of governing the statistics board and theONS.

I would prefer not to call it the Mongolian model; we could use a word much closer to home—[Interruption.] We could call it the Blackburn model. In 1995, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), now the Leader of the House, said in a speech:

“The National Statistical Service should be placed at arm’s length to Ministers on a similar basis to that of the National Audit Office, and should report principally to a powerful Committee of the Commons”.

We should give the right hon. Gentleman the credit for identifying that model, and refer to it as the Blackburn model. Why did he suggest that that might be the right approach for the governance of the new board? He did so because the NAO is recognised for its independence from the Government; that independence is created not just through its robust reports to Parliament on how taxpayers’ money is spent, but because it is seen to be demonstrably at arm’s length from the Treasury and all other Government Departments.

The National Audit Act 1983 established the Public Accounts Commission, which is responsible for the appointment of the Comptroller and Auditor General and determining the funding of the National Audit Office. Following that model will best ensure that the new board establishes a reputation like that of the NAO. This is the best opportunity to enshrine the independence of national statistics and put them at arm’s length, not only from the Treasury—this is not about Treasury bashing at all—but from all Government Departments.

The new clause and schedule replicate the wording of the 1983 Act. They would set up the commission and establish how its members were appointed. However, I should like to draw attention to the crucial difference, in respect of commission membership, between the model proposed by the new clause and schedule and that introduced by the 1983 Act. The Public Accounts Commission is drawn from Members of this House. However, interest in statistics’ importance, use and accuracy, and how they are used to hold the Government to account, is felt not only in this House, but in the other place. We feel that the other place should be represented in the commission. Many Lords have an interest in the issues; Lord Moser’s views have already been referred to in the context of that wider interest.

We believe that the model is right; it has proved to work with the NAO. The NAO seems independent of the Government and we should consider how to apply its model to the board and its executive and scrutiny functions. Why might that not be right? In his evidence to the Treasury Committee, the Minister touched on one potential reason when he said that the NAO

“has a very particular role in supporting Parliament's proper scrutiny and accountability function in relation to the executive.”

He went on to say that

“the purpose, the value, the users of national statistics, go very much wider than Parliament.”

He was right; no one would disagree. However, we should also ensure that we do not minimise the vital role of statistics in enabling Parliament to hold the Executive to account.

For example, measuring the number of children achieving five or more good GCSEs does not just provide data to parents, schools, employers or local councils; it helps hon. Members to hold the Government to account on their own policy goals. Data on productivity will help us to decide how the Chancellor is doing by what he refers to as the fundamental yardstick of economic performance. Without accurate, robust data, it is difficult for us to hold the Government to account. The distinction between the role of the National Statistics Board and that of the National Audit Office is perhaps not as great as the Minister indicated.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Many other hon. Members and I use information from the diplomatic service to hold the Government to account on their foreign policies. Does the hon. Gentleman suggest a 12-person commission should run the diplomatic service because it generates information that Members use to hold the Government to account? That seems to be the thrust of his argument about statistics.

Mark Hoban (Conservative, Fareham)

I can see the point that the hon. Gentleman is making—

Bill Olner (Labour, Nuneaton)

Order. It was a point, but it was a bit wide of the mark.

Mark Hoban (Conservative, Fareham)

Mr. Olner, you pre-empt me in that comment. I would not wish to tread down that path, although I am grateful for your guidance. There is a distinction. We are talking about data that can be measured—information about aspects of life that can be measured and need to be collated—and there is an issue about how to measure, report and produce that data accurately. That might be slightly different, I suspect, from some of the diplomatic service information to which the hon. Gentleman refers. To use your words, Mr. Olner, he is rather wide of the mark.

We propose that a commission, rather than Her Majesty the Queen on the Prime Minister’s advice, should appoint the National Statistician. The decision would be made on the basis not of the Prime Minister’s advice but of the advice of Members of this House and the other place. It would give the National Statistician some independence. He would not be beholden to the Government on reappointment, so he would be seen to be independent of the political process. It is important for him to be able to undertake his professional responsibilities without having to look over his shoulder to Government.

Our proposals would meet the concerns of the Society of Business Economists, whose evidence to the Select Committee said that the appointments process needed to be

“as independent, and perceived to be as independent, as possible”.

The amendments would take the appointment out of the party political arena and enhance the accountability of national statistics to the House.

A recurring theme on Second Reading was how to increase parliamentary scrutiny of statistics, and various models were proposed. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) suggested that we could use as our model the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, and that model has advantages—for example, questions about the committee’s operation can be tabled in the House. My parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers), answers questions on the committee’s behalf in the House once every four weeks. The committee also scrutinises the commission’s funding and business plans, ensuring that its funding is kept at arm’s length from the political process. That model differs from our proposed model in that it does not appoint members of the Electoral Commission. It does not go as far as the amendments would.

Last week, a number of hon. Members questioned whether existing scrutiny of statistical issues through Select Committees was sufficient, as we cannot set up Select Committees through legislation. The ONS is scrutinised at the moment by the Treasury Sub-Committee, but that does not necessarily ensure the full breadth of coverage. With a commission, a wider range of scrutiny might be possible, but that indicates why a Select Committee would not give the same independence as a commission for official statistics. A Select Committee could scrutinise the financial plans of the board and the ONS, but it could not determine their level of funding. Although it could have an important role in enhancing the independence of the statistician, board and ONS, it would not go as far as the NAO model that we are proposing.

In conclusion, the NAO model would achieve two key goals: it would remove the residual power of the Treasury to appoint the National Statistician and the board and move funding away from the political process so that it would not be accountable or beholden to the Treasury. Earlier, I intervened on the Minister regarding remarks made by the PCS about the ONS. I have to say that from the submission of the PCS to the Treasury Sub-Committee, I was not entirely clear whether it felt that the ONS’s funding problems were the responsibility of the ONS board or the Treasury. As the Minister said, that is a question for somebody else.

I see no evidence in that submission, however, to suggest that the current method of funding is satisfactory. A commission set up to appoint the National Statistician and board and to determine funding would be the best means by which to ensure independence and restore trust in statistics. That would send a clear signal that statistics in the UK are independent of the Government, particularly in respect of the scope of the Bill. I commend the amendment to the Committee.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I formally welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Olner.

To develop my earlier point, and to respond to those made by the hon. Member for Fareham, it is inherent to the function of the NAO that it hold the Government to account by scrutinising their actions, and particularly their spending. That is not inherent to the function of the statistics board, which instead marshals information that others may use in order to hold the Government to account.

Please bear with me, Mr. Olner, while I draw a fair analogy. If I asked an ambassador whether they had made representations to their country about breaches of human rights and that ambassador said no, I could use that information to hold the Government to account for their failure to instruct their diplomats to make such representations. The statistics board produces, and checks the quality of, information, which may then be used by others—and properly so—in this House and outside in order to hold the Government to account. In shorthand, it is an information generating or marshalling body, whose information is used by others.

As I understand it, the position of the NAO is very different. It is an inherent part of the scrutiny mechanism—it scrutinises the spending and actions of the Government. Were the hon. Member for Fareham, in whose name the amendments stand, to adopt a logical position, he would either abandon them or agree that the diplomatic service itself should be supervised by a commission made up of 12 members—six from each House.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I shall speak to amendments Nos. 186 and 187, which stand in my name, and to which one or two Opposition Members have been anxious to speak.

Amendment No. 186 would establish a requirement that the appointment of non-executive members of the statistics board be approved by the commission for official statistics, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham referred. The concept is not dissimilar to the Senate hearings that take place in respect of various appointments.

Amendment No. 187 would put in place a reporting system similar to that which currently exists through the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. That committee holds hearings in front of the Treasury Sub-Committee, which makes a report on a proposed appointment but does not have a right of veto. That is essentially the model that the amendment follows. I would prefer amendment No. 186 to be accepted, but amendment No. 187 presents an alternative.

Both amendments neatly complement the Blackburn model, as my hon. Friend called it. That model would give Parliament a greater role in appointments, which are a key part of the overall statistics system. That does not necessarily mean that the Blackburn model must apply in its entirety for the amendment to be appropriate, but I have used that model because it would allow for the creation of the commission for official statistics, which would be a convenient body to review statistical matters. There could alternatively be parliamentary proceedings to do much the same thing, but I felt it important to suggest an addition to the Bill and considered that the model I chose presented the best opportunity to do so.

I know what the Government’s position will be on the Blackburn model as a whole, but there are two reasons why they should receive the amendments with a degree of sympathy. First, the Bill’s intention is to create greater independence and a greater perception of independence for statistics. One of its weaknesses is the fact that the Treasury will have enormous appointment powers, specifically the ability to appoint a minimum of five non-executive directors other than the chairman. The chairman will be appointed by Her Majesty under the Crown prerogative but presumably with significant advice from the Treasury.

We are concerned about the appointment powers that the Treasury will have, which the Bill does nothing to restrain. There is no provision to prevent members of the board from serving a number of terms. There are always arguments to be had about term limits and so on, and I am not necessarily putting the case for them, but one could argue that a member of the board wanting to renew his position would be under pressure not to upset the Government. Perhaps that is unduly cynical, but we are considering perceptions and it is an issue to consider. If we wish to improve the independence of statistics, giving Parliament a role in the appointments process seems sensible. A right of veto would be stronger than a right to report, but either would be a step in the right direction.

The second reason why the Government might greet the amendments with some degree of sympathy relates to the larger issue of reforming the royal prerogative, a desire that I believe is shared in all parts of the House. The Chancellor of the Exchequer indicated in his interview with Andrew Marr in the new year that a Government led by him would rebalance the relationship between the Executive and Parliament and consider areas in which the royal prerogative could be reformed. Most of that debate has focused on Parliament voting before we go to war, but that happens relatively infrequently, even under this Government. Appointments happen much more frequently.

The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West has raised the issue of Parliament and the diplomatic service. Clearly, the diplomatic service reporting directly to Parliament would not be appropriate, and such a Blackburn model—

Bill Olner (Labour, Nuneaton)

Order. I have already ruled on that.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

My point is that if we want to rebalance the relationship between Parliament and Executive, which my amendments attempt to do, a role for Parliament in appointments, be they of members of the statistics board, diplomats, ambassadors or high commissioners, could be hugely important and valuable. The idea of Senate-style hearings before appointments are made by the Executive might be very helpful.

It is worth considering that even if my amendments were accepted, or if the Government were to make alternative proposals along such lines, considerable powers would still be left in the hands of the Treasury, which would still have the opportunity to initiate appointments or to come up with names. A parliamentary Committee would not interview or canvass opinion on a wide range of candidates, because Parliament would be presented with a name and given an opportunity to say yes or no.

Likewise, when we come to the number of non-executive members, the Treasury can create a large number of members of the board, if it wishes to dilute the power of a difficult individual, which is a point made earlier today. In that case, short of using the veto powers in amendment No. 186, Parliament would not be able to do anything, because residual powers would be retained within the Treasury. None the less, if the Government want to increase independence and take the opportunity to rebalance the relationship between Parliament and the Executive, I hope that the Financial Secretary will sympathise with the thrust of my amendments. Here is a clear opportunity to improve parliamentary accountability and the standing of Parliament and, in so doing, aid the Government’s laudable objective of improving independence within the field of statistics.

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

I will begin where I ended, because, as the Financial Secretary was kind enough to point out, I pre-empted myself in my previous remarks.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

My hon. Friend was giving the Committee some pre-release access.

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

Yes, but it involved less than the half hour that the President of the United States gets.

As I have pointed out, the Financial Secretary said this on Second Reading:

“The House has a central role in and responsibility for the new statistics system”—[Official Report, 8 January 2007; Vol. 455, c. 23.].

That is essential to our argument and is the point that drives new clause 2. Surely only through parliamentary scrutiny and approval of appointments to the board will we get the necessary legitimacy in the public’s eyes. The real issue behind our debates in the next seven sittings is public confidence in the numbers that are released, which is what we are trying for.

Anything that removes the Treasury as much as possible from decision making or influence, whether it is over appointments to the board or whether it is over saying what is good or not, has to be a good thing. The point is not that the Treasury is dishonest, but that it is the greatest user and consumer of Government statistics. That is what drives new clause 2. I believe, as do my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham and, I hope, my other hon. Friends, that a separate commission will allow two tiers of scrutiny. The board’s oversight of operational matters and parliamentary scrutiny will lock integrity into official statistics, which is the best solution to the current problem of the muddled responsibilities identified by the Royal Statistical Society.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

We have had another constructive and useful discussion. I am especially glad that the hon. Member for Braintree shared his full remarks with the Committee on this occasion. As we have heard, the amendments, the new clause and the proposed new schedule would have two main effects. First, they would establish in statute a commission for official statistics that would be a Committee of both Houses. Subsequently, they would assign to it several roles, including appointments of board members. While we shall deal in more detail with amendments on appointments and on funding, those proposals would significantly alter the accountability model proposed under the Bill. It is useful to examine the principles on which appointments, funding or governance in general should be based to reflect the function and the role that we expect the board to play.

I shall deal with governance as we want to construct it under the Bill, after which I shall turn to the proposals advocated by hon. Members. On the principles, statistical production is as an Executive function, which is appropriately located within Government rather than within Parliament. As has been acknowledged by the Committee, statistics are a public good that serve a wide range of users and interests. That point was supported in our public consultation and by the Treasury Committee in its report earlier this year.

The second principle is that, while there is no overriding international precedent or principle for the organisation of statistical systems, an almost universal feature is that the production of statistics sits with the Executive, with the one exception of Mongolia. A central pillar of our model is the production of statistics as a responsibility of the Executive.

The third important principle is that the monitoring and auditing of the statistics system is carried out by the independent board that requires a non-Executive majority that is capable of reflecting the expertise and experience of a wide range of statistical users and interests in such a way that it is impossible to envisage Parliament doing, even with the combined expertise of both Houses.

The fourth component is that Parliament’s role in the model is to hold to account all those involved in or responsible for the operation and aspects of the system. That is rightly the role that Parliament plays in relation to other executive functions of Government that are devolved or overseen by independent boards, such as the Food Standards Agency. A commission for official statistics that is established in statute, that is composed of Members of both Houses and that has a role in funding and appointments would therefore complicate the system of governance and Parliament’s role in it, and it would not assist in achieving the overall objectives of the Bill.

Let me set out the principles on which the model proposed by hon. Members is based and the flaws in it. In expressing his interest, the hon. Member for Fareham referred to the National Audit Office and the Electoral Commission. It is true that there are a limited number of other areas where there are commissions of the type proposed in the new clause and new schedule; for example, the Public Accounts Commission, which scrutinises the work of the NAO, and the Speaker’s Committee, which oversees the work of the Electoral Commission. However, there is an important principal difference with the statistics board and what is proposed in the new clause and new schedule.

The Speaker’s Committee and the Electoral Commission, and the Public Accounts Commission and the National Audit Office, are involved in the scrutiny of fundamentally different organisations and issues, neither of which are the responsibility of the Executive. Consequently, those models are not appropriate ones on which to base an accountability regime for the statistical system. The functions of both the NAO and the Electoral Commission are to serve and support the legislature in carrying out specific roles. Therefore, neither example is appropriate in the case of statistics.

The Public Accounts Commission’s primary role is to examine the NAO estimates, and it was established in a manner akin to the proposed commission for official statistics. As I have said, the role of the NAO is quite different from that of the statistical system. The NAO has a particular role in ensuring that Departments achieve the required value for the money, and a particular responsibility for assisting this House in ensuring that the resources authorised by it to Departments are properly spent.

Equally, the Speaker’s Committee, which scrutinises the expenditure and income of the Electoral Commission, was established because of the special role that the Electoral Commission plays in relation to this legislature. The commission is set up to establish and assess the integrity of the conduct and administration of elections to this House and of referendums. Elections to Parliament and the expenditure of moneys voted by it are constitutional matters and are fundamentally different from the production of statistics by the Government, so the governance and accountability models proposed in the Bill are rightly and appropriately different.

On the basis of those principal points, let me turn specifically to amendments Nos. 176 and 177, which would allow the chairman of a commission for official statistics to appoint the non-executive members of the board. That is inconsistent with the board’s executive function, and Parliament should not interpose on executive appointments in that way.

As has been mentioned a couple of times, a recent Treasury Committee report stated that public perceptions about the independence of the board will depend more on the actions of board members than on the method of their appointment. I agree with that, and I believe that the involvement of Parliament in the appointments process, as proposed in the amendments, would skew and confuse the accountability model. For those reasons, I cannot accept the amendment, and I hope that in the light of this debate the hon. Member for Fareham will withdraw it.

The amendments tabled by the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire are a different approach to the same issue. Giving the commission a role in approving appointments would be inconsistent with the board’s wider executive function. It is appropriate that Ministers play a role in appointments, because it is an executive function. For clarity, I shall confirm to the Committee what I said before: we will make appointments entirely in line with the guidance of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. In its report, the Treasury Committee said that that would be sufficient to ensure the independence of the appointments process.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

The Minister considers it inappropriate for Parliament to play a role in the appointment of persons performing an executive function. Does he hold that position in principle? If so, will he explain why?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I have tried to explain to the Committee that that position follows from an attempt to draw out the principles of a proper accountability model. It is worth pointing out that even without the hon. Gentleman’s amendments, Parliament will be able to review the appointments and report its findings as part of the discharge of its responsibility to hold to account the overall operation of the reformed system.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

Briefly on that point, is the Minister prepared to consider the confirmation-hearing model? Before the appointments were finalised, Parliament would have the opportunity to question the candidates.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

That is not a matter for the Government. On this Committee there are three distinguished members of the Treasury Committee, and it holds confirmation hearings for appointments to relevant bodies.

On the subject of the hon. Lady’s new clause and new schedule, I hope that the deliberations of this Committee are a prompt that helps to inform the debate about how Parliament must organise to discharge its functions and responsibilities under the Bill. She may want to ensure that her arguments form part of those discussions in this House and in another place.

Turning to new clause 2, I have said clearly and more than once that under the new arrangements we expect Parliament and the devolved legislatures to play the central role in holding the new system to account. The Bill makes provision to ensure that they can do so. However, Parliament must decide how best to hold the statistical system to account, and it must decide in particular on the arrangements that it wants to put in place so that it can do so.

I see some merit in the proposal for a Joint Committee of the two Houses, although it is not a matter for me as a Minister. It would enable both Houses’ expertise and interest in such matters to be played in, and it would allow their breadth and depth of expertise to play a part in the strong and proper scrutiny of the system. However, I do not want to establish the proposal in statute. Ultimately, it would reduce the flexibility and discretion of Parliament to set up the arrangements that it saw fit and to refine them in light of experience.

At the outset this morning, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks reminded us that statistics legislation is rare in this place, and that the last major statistics legislation was debated 60 years ago in 1947. So, to set arrangements for the discharge of the scrutiny and accountability functions of this House and Parliament in primary legislation would risk introducing a counter-productive degree of inflexibility.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I note the Financial Secretary’s comments about giving greater flexibility to Parliament. If we were ever to give a veto power on appointments to Parliament, it would need to be contained in statute. I return to a question I raised earlier: whether he was objecting to Parliament ever having a veto role on executive functions. Does he not accept that in many countries, the United States in particular, using a veto is precisely what the legislature is able to do?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

As we are talking about an executive function, I have explained that it is right that Ministers play the role in the appointments process that we are proposing.

In conclusion, Parliament’s role will be central. Unless I have missed significant discussions that have been going on, Parliament has still to come to a considered view on how best to approach this. Legislating for a commission would prevent the sort of developments that have been seen in recent years in Parliament: trialling certain arrangements, reviewing them in Parliament and then refining, strengthening and reinforcing them. Including such an arrangement in this Bill would prevent precisely that sort of approach in the future.

It is important for the proper and strongest possible discharge of Parliament’s scrutiny function that it can adapt and develop further in the light of experience. I hope that the hon. Members who have tabled these amendments, new clause 2 and new schedule 1, and proposed setting up a commission for official statistics, will consider the matter further, having listened to the debate, and will not press them to a Division.

Mark Hoban (Conservative, Fareham)

May I thank the Financial Secretary for the way in which he explained his perspective on the amendments and for the way in which the parliamentary scrutiny of the board will be conducted? He was right to say that he expects Parliament to play a central role in holding the statistical system to account.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

The central role.

Mark Hoban (Conservative, Fareham)

I am grateful to the Financial Secretary for correcting my grammar. I do not think that there can be more than one centre.

In a sense, part of the problem with our debate on this group of amendments, new clause 2 and new schedule 1 is that we are having half a debate, because we cannot, in primary legislation, set out the detailed arrangements for Select Committees, for example. That is a House matter, so it will be debated on the Floor of the House. We almost need to have a debate running in parallel to this one to tell us how parliamentary scrutiny should work and how Members should expect it to take place.

While it is not in the Bill’s power to determine what parliamentary scrutiny there should be beyond the proposals in this group of amendments, in a sense, by speaking against new clause 2 and new schedule 1, the Financial Secretary is setting a limit on the way in which Parliament can deal with the funding and the appointment of the board. He is effectively saying that Parliament will not be able to appoint the board or to determine the funding. The way in which Parliament will hold the board, its members and the way in which it performs its functions to account is being constrained by the Bill.

The Financial Secretary was right to say that we seem to have a Bill on this matter once every 60 years. I am sure that if more detailed arrangements were put in place, such Bills might be more frequent, to allow us to adjust to circumstances. This Bill sets a limit to parliamentary scrutiny. We ought to have a parallel debate in the House to the one that is taking place in this Committee. I suppose that that is a good argument for not pushing the amendment to a vote at this point, because it is important to see how the debate on parliamentary scrutiny develops over the coming weeks.

The Minister set out clearly in his opening remarks the various functions of the board and highlighted its responsibility for the production of statistics, which is the executive function. He also highlighted the monitoring and auditing role that the board will play, although we shall come to the detailed arrangements for that in later clauses. One of the Minister’s arguments—which I shall characterise to make a point—for why the proposed route is not the best route to go down is based on the existence of those executive responsibilities within the board. Some have argued that if a different structure had been proposed, whereby the board’s oversight role was separate from the production of the statistics, the NAO model would be appropriate, in respect of the board exercising its oversight role. The way in which the people whom the board appointed to exercise that auditing and monitoring function would be employed and the way in which that oversight role was funded would lend themselves more readily to the NAO model.

It is partly because of the confusion of roles within the board that we have an unsatisfactory means of holding the board to account. The Minister highlighted examples of how the executive function is held to account elsewhere and of how it is funded in other territories and jurisdictions. It is almost because of that confusion of roles that we cannot move to an NAO model to fund the scrutiny and oversight role.

We shall return to that issue, but it is important to recognise that the way in which the two roles have been fused in the board makes it more difficult to come up with a more satisfactory way of having the funding and appointing of the board National Statistician at arm’s length from the Treasury. My hon. Friends will talk about that issue later, but that confusion works its way through the Bill and will affect the practical way in which the board will be held to account. I hope that there will be more opportunities for discussions about how Parliament should hold the body to account, as the Committee debates the Bill and as it goes to the other place. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 4

Bill Olner (Labour, Nuneaton)

I am advised by my fellow Chairman, Sir John Butterfill, that you may wish to move amendment No. 14 formally, Mr. Fallon.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I do not wish to move amendment No. 14, but I hope to catch your eye if there is a stand part debate, Mr. Olner.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I want to raise three technical, house-keeping points about the clause. I fully recognise that the Minister might not be able to respond to my points on his feet, so I should be quite happy for him to answer them in the course of our proceeding. First, can non-executive members of the board be reappointed? The wording of subsections (1) and (6) leads me to conclude that they can be reappointed, although on first reading of subsection (1), one might get the impression that they can serve only a five-year term. I take it from reading both subsections together that a member can be reappointed, although it would be useful to have that clarified. The explanatory notes on the clause refer to

“the rules for the appointment of, resignation or dismissal of, and reappointment of, non-executive members”.

I hope that I am correct in my assumption, although if I am not, I hope that the Minister can clarify the matter.

Secondly, there is the issue that amendment No. 14 would have raised, and which applies more generally, of dismissal under subsection (4) seeming to be entirely summary. I assume that the non-executive members are not employees. If they are, I am at a loss as to how to reconcile the provision allowing them to be summarily dismissed—I shall not go over the arguments about misbehaviour—without having the normal recourse to the protection of employment law. Perhaps the Minister will advise me that they are not employees, but enjoy a different employment status.

Finally, there is the issue of compensation for dismissal under subsection (5). Having set up the independent board and having been told throughout the debate that it will be independent, that the Treasury will not be running it and so on, I am disappointed to find out that the board is not allowed to deal with compensation for summary dismissal, but that it has to be approved by the Treasury. I understand the reason for protecting public funds, but it does not say much for the independence of the board if it cannot deal with employment matters, which all have to be regulated and directed by the Treasury.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I want to tuck right in behind the hon. Gentleman on this. Because of the compensation provisions in subsection (5), and without rehearsing the debate on amendment No. 14, I urge my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to reconsider subsection (4)(d) and adopt the Fats Waller approach—“Ain’t Misbehavin’”. The word should be removed or changed to misconduct. We referred earlier to misconduct. That is a potential minefield, which could lead to the sort of compensation payments that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. That word might be used in a railway or energy Act. As a lawyer, I have to say that it is most unsatisfactory, and I suspect that the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire would agree. Misbehaved does not need to be in there; it should say “misconduct” or nothing.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

Perhaps I can deal with the four points that have been raised now, rather than in writing. On the first point made by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks, yes, non-executive members of the board can be reappointed. It is a feature of the guidance issued by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. I have stressed that we will follow the procedures and the guidance. If he will permit me to reflect on the need for clarity in the legislation about the fact that reappointment is possible for non-executive members, I shall do so.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

For what it is worth, I agree with that interpretation. Does the Financial Secretary share my concern that where there is a power of reappointment, serving members of the board might be perceived to feel some pressure to comply with the person or entity making the appointment—in this case, as it is currently drafted, the Treasury. The benefit of reappointment is that expertise is retained. Does he recognise that concern?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I recognise it only in the most conceptual way. In practice, there is a process for the appointment of board members selected by the Treasury through the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments, which is well established and well regarded. The Treasury Committee has said that it will give sufficient independence to those appointments. If we get those right, the composition and conduct of the board will rapidly establish its authority and its credibility, and will demonstrate the distance that it has from Ministers—a distance at which it will be able to set the statistical system. The conceptual problem that worries the hon. Gentleman will prove not to be a problem in practice.

On the second point raised by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks. Non-executive members of the board will not be employees. In the event of a problem, they will have recourse to a judicial review or, conceivably, the ombudsman. The answer to his third question is that these are matters not of employment, but of appointment. The Government rightly remain involved in the appointment, as we have discussed, hence the wording of subsection (5)(b).

My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West has an endearing habit of not giving up on something that he feels is not correct. We had a full discussion this morning, but he is clearly not satisfied with the fact that there are legislative precedents for the criteria concerned. Neither is he satisfied that the provision is an attempt to bring up to date some of the terminology that we use in legislation. As a lawyer, he will know that the equivalent of misbehaviour is malfeasance. Essentially, they mean the same thing. If he is disturbed by subsection (4)(d), I will take a fresh look at it to see whether there is a case for making amendments that could achieve precisely the same effect but avoid the use of the term misbehaviour, which he does not feel is appropriate for use in legislation.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I am grateful to the Minister for answering most of those points. I hope that he understands our concern that we want the non-executive members to be as independent as possible; they should not have to be skating carefully all the time. I hope that he will reflect on the drafting, which—I think inadvertently—gives the impression that the members can be reappointed only on the whim of the Treasury and can be summarily fired for the slightest misbehaviour. I am grateful for his offer to re-examine the drafting.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

Does hon. Gentleman not recognise that the examples that I suggested might constitute misbehaviour were certainly not trivial or light? They were very serious indeed. The concept of misbehaviour as framed in the Bill is by no means a light offence.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I understand that. As the rest of the Committee is suggesting, it would have to be reasonably serious to justify summary dismissal. I do not want to over-egg the issue, but when we pressed the Minister earlier he went into the area of misconduct. We spoke this morning of corruption and violence, in which case I do not think that compensation would be paid for loss of office; it would be strange if it were. Today, he has introduced the concept of malfeasance, the proving of which leads down a tricky legal path. I urge him to have another look at the drafting. He may be able to strengthen it in all our interests.

Clause 5

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I beg to move amendment No. 15, in clause 5, page 3, line 13, after ‘Majesty’, insert

‘on the advice of the Prime Minister’.

Bill Olner (Labour, Nuneaton)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 120, in clause 5, page 3, leave out lines 14 and 15 and insert—

‘(b) employed to operate independently of the Board with scrutiny and oversight of the role provided by the Board.’.

No. 188, in clause 5, page 3, line 15, at end insert—

‘(2A) No appointment shall be made under subsection (2) until it has been approved by the Commission established under section (Establishment of a Commission for Official Statistics).’.

No. 189, in clause 5, page 3, line 15, at end insert—

‘(2A) Appointments made under subsection (2) shall be subject to review by the Commission established under section (Establishment of a Commission for Official Statistics) within one year of their having been made.

(2B) The Commission shall produce a report on any review carried out under subsection (2A) and shall lay it before each House of Parliament.’.

No. 16, in clause 5, page 3, line 19, at end insert—

‘(3A) The National Statistician shall have right of direct access to the Prime Minister on any matter involving dispute with a government department.’.

No. 151, in clause 6, page 3, line 34, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 121, in clause 8, page 4, line 35, at end insert—

‘(4) The Board shall have responsibility to monitor and assess the performance of the National Statistician against the assigned responsibilities.’.

No. 100, in clause 9, page 4, line 37, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 101, in clause 9, page 5, line 2, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 102, in clause 9, page 5, line 4, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 103, in clause 18, page 8, line 15, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 104, in clause 18, page 8, line 17, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 105, in clause 18, page 8, line 19, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 106, in clause 18, page 8, line 21, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 107, in clause 18, page 8, line 23, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 108, in clause 19, page 8, line 26, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 125, in clause 19, page 8, line 30, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 126, in clause 19, page 8, line 36, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 109, in clause 20, page 9, line 11, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 110, in clause 21, page 9, line 20, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 111, in clause 22, page 9, line 23, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 112, in clause 22, page 9, line 25, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 113, in clause 22, page 9, line 27, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 114, in clause 23, page 9, line 34, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 115, in clause 26, page 10, line 34, after ‘Board’ and insert ‘and the National Statistician’.

No. 116, in clause 26, page 10, line 35, after ‘Board’ and insert ‘and the National Statistician’.

No. 197, in clause 28, page 12, line 6, at end insert—

‘(d) ensuring that, where appropriate, official statistics provide evidence of local variations and service needs.’.

No. 97, in clause 28, page 12, line 17, at end insert—

‘(5) The National Statistician shall be the government’s chief advisor on statistics, including, inter alia, matters relating to the planning, production and quality of official statistics, and shall provide professional leadership to all persons within government who are engaged in statistical production and release.’.

No. 127, in clause 28, page 12, line 17, at end insert—

‘(5) The National Statistician shall be the government’s principal advisor on statistics and provide professional leadership to all persons engaged in statistical production and publication.’.

No. 80, in clause 29, page 12, line 19, leave out ‘Board’ and insert

‘executive office created under the provisions of subsection (5) below’.

No. 98, in clause 29, page 12, line 22, at end insert—

‘(2A) The National Statistician shall—

(a) coordinate, and promote coordination of, statistical production across government and the devolved administrations; and

(b) take steps to ensure consistency in the production of official statistics across the United Kingdom.’.

No. 29, in clause 29, page 12, line 27, at end insert—

‘(3A) The National Statistician shall have responsibility for promoting—

(a) the co-ordination of statistical planning and production across government departments; and

(b) the production of statistics that are as consistent as possible across the United Kingdom.’.

No. 139, in clause 29, page 12, line 28, leave out from ‘Board’ to end of line 30 and insert

‘shall monitor the National Statistician in the exercise of his functions in relation to official statistics, inlcuding the duty set out in subsection (2A) above.’.

No. 128, in clause 29, page 12, line 28, after ‘may’ insert ‘not’.

No. 129, in clause 29, page 12, line 29, leave out ‘not’.

No. 117, in clause 31, page 13, line 26, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 130, in clause 36, page 14, line 35, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 132, in clause 36, page 14, line 40, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 133, in clause 36, page 15, line 4, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 134, in clause 36, page 15, line 23, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 135, in clause 36, page 15, line 25, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 136, in clause 36, page 15, line 27, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 137, in clause 36, page 15, line 30, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

No. 138, in clause 36, page 15, line 31, leave out ‘Board’ and insert ‘National Statistician’.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

You have conveniently grouped together a large number of amendments, Mr. Olner, only three of which stand in my name. I wish to speak only to amendments Nos. 15, 16 and 29.

The provisions relate to the status and role of the National Statistician. Amendment No. 15 deals with the way in which the National Statistician is to be appointed. I have tabled the amendment because it is still slightly unclear to me exactly how that appointment is going to be made. The Minister may recall that I pressed the matter twice on Second Reading, and I have still not had a specifically clear answer.

If we look at current practice, the National Statistician, Karen Dunnell, was appointed in August 2005, and the press release from National Statistics described her appointment as:

“The Prime Minister, with the agreement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has approved the appointment of Karen Dunnell as National Statistician”.

Subsection (2) is clearly an improvement on that; that is an administrative statement, and we now have in the statute a Crown appointment. However, like all Crown appointments, that appointment can only be made on advice, and the issue with which amendment No. 15 deals is on whose advice the appointment is to be made.

Lord Moser—the doyen of statistics, the man who served three Prime Ministers—was very clear in evidence to the Select Committee. In answer to question 213, he said:

“If it was left to me, I would have the Prime Minister being given that responsibility.”

That, of course, means not the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In fact, even if one agrees with the Financial Secretary, as the Committee has had to do today, that the residual functions should stay with Treasury Ministers, even as the Treasury Select Committee recommended, there is still a case for making the appointment of the National Statistician a prime ministerial appointment.

If we are serious about restoring trust to the office and its holder, we should be boosting it. It should become one of the big offices of state. I should like the National Statistician to become more of a household name—a key public figure in leading the profession and championing the public interest in statistics. It is worth emphasising the importance of the office and making a distinction in statute about the appointment being in the end the primary responsibility of the Prime Minister—although, of course, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be consulted.

The Prime Minister makes a number of appointments. I have been checking the people whom he has appointed over the last year and it includes a number of appointments of people who we might not think of as being in the front rank of public figures: the first parliamentary counsel; members of the Judicial Appointments Commission; the non-executive member of the Forestry Commission for Scotland; a member of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales; together with perhaps more central public figures, such as the permanent secretaries of the different Departments. When the last permanent secretary to the Department for Education and Skills was appointed, the wording was as follows:

“The Prime Minister, with the agreement of the Secretary of State for Education and Skills has approved the appointment of David Bell to be Permanent Secretary”.

The same wording was followed for the permanent secretaryship to the Treasury itself. There is a parallel, and I think that it is important that we formally emphasise that the new post, placed in statute properly for the first time, is a public figure of the very front rank. We would remove any perception that the appointment remains within the control of the Treasury or the Chancellor. That is the purpose of amendment No. 15.

Amendment No. 16 is designed to make clear that the National Statistician should have right of access to the Prime Minister at all times. I want to emphasise that although you have wisely grouped amendment No. 16 with No. 15, Mr. Olner, it is not necessarily dependent on it. In other words, even if amendment No. 15 falls, and Ministers insist that it should be a Chancellor’s appointment, I would still argue that the National Statistician should have in statute this right of access to the Prime Minister.

Why should the National Statistician have such a right of access? Because, as we have begun to establish today, they need the authority if they are to do their job properly across the system. Lord Moser, who served three Prime Ministers, was quite emphatic about that. He explained to our Select Committee what happened if there were problems in a particular Department. I will not quote his evidence at great length but he gave the example of a dispute with the Department of Health over hospital waiting lists. I do not know whether that arose when he was the chief statistician in the late 1960s or 1970s, but it is clearly of topical interest today.

If there were a dispute between the National Statistician and the Department of Health about the way in which waiting lists were being compiled or the statistics were being announced, Lord Moser said that his first recourse would be to take it up with the statistician—under our decentralised system, the senior statistician in the Department of Health. It also helps that he would have some role in appointing that statistician and, as we shall come to in later amendments, some liaison duty with all the statisticians across the Departments. If he did not get any joy in persuading the statistician in that Department, he said that he would then go to the permanent secretary. If he got no joy from the permanent secretary,

“then I went to my boss. This is important. My boss was the Prime Minister.”

That is the crux. There could well be a dispute between the National Statisticians and different Departments and different departmental Ministers. There has been in the past. Indeed, Lord Moser told us that he resigned privately twice during his period of office. Therefore, we must put the right of access of the National Statistician to the Prime Minister in statute and give the National Statistician real authority across Whitehall.

I hope that amendment No. 29 speaks for itself. It is slightly different from the supervisory functions that we dealt with earlier today. I think that it has the support of many outside the House, including the statistics users forum. Its objective is that we should give the National Statistician some overarching responsibility to co-ordinate statistics across the decentralised system that the Financial Secretary and I are so keen to preserve and to ensure consistency, not simply across the United Kingdom and the different nations and territories, but between the Government Departments and the different series of statistics that exist.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

It is a pleasure and a privilege to follow my hon. Friend and to speak in support of amendment No. 15 and various other amendments in the group. We have a variety of issues to deal with and I hope that the Committee will bear with me as I go through them with some care. There are a number of areas where, even if we are unable to persuade the Minister to accept our amendments, it would be useful to receive some clarification from him. There is genuine confusion among much of the statistical community about how the Bill will operate in significant respects.

The first set of amendments deals with the split between executive and scrutiny functions. The second set seeks to enhance the authority of the National Statistician and to clarify her role. My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks eloquently referred to the way in which it would boost her status. Prime ministerial involvement in the appointment, as amendment No. 15 describes, would play an important part in enhancing that authority.

It is also vital to consider the issue that amendment No. 16 raises about direct access to the Prime Minister. I shall not deal with it at length under the amendments before us, because I anticipated it when we considered the transfer of responsibilities between the Treasury and the Cabinet Office. Instead, I shall highlight the question that I posed to the Minister when we considered the issue during earlier amendments. I asked him to clarify the National Statistician’s current access to the Prime Minister. We heard how Lord Moser was convinced that the link between the National Statistician and the Prime Minister had been broken by the switch from the Cabinet Office to the Treasury. I hope that the Minister will reassure us that the National Statistician still sees the Prime Minister regularly, and that she has access as and when she needs it.

The first group of amendments starts roughly at amendment No. 100. There should be a clear separation of the executive and scrutiny functions. The Government’s attempt to split the two roles within the board does not go far enough to answer the concerns that a significant number of people expressed during consultation. The executive functions proposed for the board should be removed and transferred to the National Statistician. That is the objective of most amendments in the group; the remainder focus largely on enhancing the authority of the National Statistician.

On Second Reading, the Minister responded to a point that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West made about actuaries. The Minister said that technical queries about methodology should be directed to the National Statistician, noting that that was how they were currently dealt with and that it would be unlikely to change under the new system. However, to take just one example, clause 9 explicitly requires the board to develop and maintain definitions, methodologies, classifications and standards for official statistics. If his statement on Second Reading is to prove correct, he must support amendment No. 100. It would give responsibility to the National Statistician—to whom it rightly belongs.

The Opposition support the Treasury Sub-Committee’s approach to the matter. It stated that executive responsibility for delivery of statistics should remain with the National Statistician, whom the board would hold to account. Its statement echoed the sentiments expressed by the Royal Statistical Society on this important matter. It said:

“The National Statistician should be responsible for professional and operational matters and for statistical production. The Board should not be assigned responsibilities integral to statistical production and dissemination as the Bill envisages. It should instead hold the National Statistician to account for these responsibilities so separating the role of statistical producer from the role of monitoring to ensure that the public interest is served.”

Commenting on the issue, a number of people have referred to the independent status of the Statistics Commission, which is separate from the production of statistics. Professor David Martin of the university of Southampton said:

“It is a matter of concern that this board will be responsible both for the production and quality assessment of National Statistics and no provision is made for a separate quality assurance body, closer to the role of the current Statistics Commission.”

Similar concerns have been expressed by Brian Gosschalk, chief executive of Ipsos MORI, and by Jill Tuffnell, head of research at Cambridgeshire county council. Speaking on behalf of the Central and Local Government Information Partnership, she said that

“the group would like to comment on the need for independent scrutiny of official statistics. The Statistics Commission is just such an independent body. There is no guarantee that the proposed board will be able to act in this way. A much clearer divide is required between scrutiny and operations.”

Making a similar appeal, Will Rossiter, the chairman of the Association of Regional Observatories, said:

“The proposal to combine the executive (production) and scrutiny functions within a single board is problematic. It is unclear as to what form of redress or appeal would be open to an individual or organisation wishing to challenge the decision of the board. The statistics commission should not be abolished if the board is to have executive functions.”

The Committee will be aware that the Statistics Commission has done valuable work in improving the quality and integrity of statistics in the UK, and I acknowledge the achievements of the changes made by the Government in setting it up. However, one of the commission’s strengths has been its independence from the production process, and it is difficult to believe that it could have had the same impact had it been part of the Office for National Statistics. The statistics users forum put it this way:

“The proposals suggest that the Board of the non-ministerial department has responsibility for both the delivery of statistics and for assuring quality and adherence to standards. We do not believe it is good governance that the same body should be responsible for both functions. Neither is it conducive to restoring or maintaining public trust in the system ... The proposed disappearance of the statistics commission would eliminate a check on the system while replacing it with a system that would appear, at least, to be weaker.”

Although, in the main, the Bill is certainly a step in the right direction, a fact which was acknowledged by both Opposition parties on Second Reading, it is a matter of real concern that this particular aspect of the Bill could be a step backwards—that it could actually weaken some of the safeguards that currently exist.

At the heart of the anxiety that has been expressed about the merging of functions is that the proposed combination of functions will give rise to a conflict of interest. The Select Committee on the Treasury considered that this

“would be likely to have a negative impact on the board’s perceived independence.”

As John Carlin, head of the North East Regional Information Partnership has pointed out, there will be a problem reporting concerns about decisions taken at the ONS because the board’s executive functions will mean that it “will not be detached.” That, at any rate, is how matters will be perceived.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I wonder whether the hon. Lady could help me by telling me which part of the Bill indicates that the statistics board produces statistics in contradistinction to examining quality, good practices, comprehensiveness and so on?

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I am grateful for that intervention. I shall direct the hon. Gentleman to clause 6(1), which says:

“In this Part ‘official statistics’ means ... statistics produced by ... the Board.”

There is another reference, in clause 18, where it says:

“The board may itself produce and publish statistics relating to any matter relating to the United Kingdom or any part of it.”

I think that those are the clearest examples.

It will be perceived that the board will not be detached, and perception is crucial in this matter because the purpose is to rebuild trust in official statistics. The RSS have said:

“Were the Board itself to be involved in the production process then it is difficult to see how it could command the public’s confidence in its ability to monitor statistical production.”

The problem essentially arises because the board will be judge and jury in its own case.

Let us look at what happens when a member of the public or a Member is concerned about a decision taken by the ONS. I shall give an example. My hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) campaigned for a number of years about the way in which pension contributions were measured by the ONS and assessed in ONS statistics. In the end, the ONS admitted that he was correct on several points, and it changed its approach, but that took some time.

What if the same situation arose under the new structures? When, for example, my hon. Friend received the initial response from the ONS, rejecting his complaint and asserting that it considered its procedures to be correct, the natural step would have been to make a complaint to the board and to ask for an assessment and review of the decision. Let us assume that the board were sufficiently wise to realise that the ONS had not adequately or appropriately responded.

If the board were to issue a rebuke to the ONS it would, in effect, be talking to itself. The chairman would be in the awkward situation of issuing a rebuke to himself. The board’s standing to hold the ONS to account would be undermined by the fact that the board, as a body, was technically responsible for the decision taking in the first place.

The issue is thrown into stark relief when one looks at it in relation to judicial review. A person who is concerned about practices at the ONS or a decision made by it could in theory decide to apply for judicial review at the same time as making a complaint to the board. However, the board itself would be the relevant body for the purposes of reviewing the decision. Will the Minister confirm whether that is the case?

On Second Reading, I made a comparison with the structure of the BBC. The regulatory and delivery functions of the BBC are mixed in a similar way to the arrangements proposed in the Bill. Concerns have been expressed about the BBC arrangements, including by the House of Lords Select Committee on the BBC’s Charter Review, which called for greater external regulation. The Burns panel, in its independent report to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, labelled the dual role of the governors as regulator and defender of the BBC “unsustainable”. Clearly, the Hutton crisis has led to a shake up of governance, but controversy remains. How much greater would the controversy attached to the BBC’s governance arrangements be if it had the responsibility for regulating not only its own activities, but the activities of other key broadcasters? That analogy can be applied validly in the context of the statistics board, because of its dual roles in relation to the production of statistics and monitoring the statistical system as a whole.

Now I come to a tricky point relating to clause 29, which I think is one of the more difficult issues that the Committee must address, and I am particularly keen to get the views and guidance of Ministers. A number of interest groups expressed concern that the Bill fails to distinguish properly between the functions of the board and the National Statistician. That is a particular worry in relation to clause 29. Who is to make technical decisions on statistics: the board, or the National Statistician? Take the example of Network Rail given by the Royal Statistical Society in its briefing. Let us assume that the ONS makes a controversial decision relating to the classification of Network Rail liabilities. Clause 29(4) gives the board the power to direct the National Statistician to take a different decision—in essence, the decision of the board can be substituted for that of the National Statistician. Concern has been expressed that that blurs the role of the board and the National Statistician and leaves the line of responsibility for a decision insufficiently clear.

Amendments Nos. 139, 128 and 129, which have the same objective, are designed to clarify the position, so that the responsibility to make a decision rests with the National Statistician, but it can be monitored and reviewed by the board. I hope that the Committee will have the opportunity to consider the issue of the respective roles. Both the RSS and the Statistics Commission have made representations. They say that the board’s role in that context should be to focus on the way in which a decision has been taken—it should consider whether there has been a defect in the decision-making process; whether improper political pressure has been applied; whether the code has been complied with; and whether appropriate transparency requirements have been observed to ensure that outcomes are adequately described and explained to the public. The RSS and the Statistics Commission feel that the board’s sanction should be publicly to highlight its concerns before Parliament, and not to seek directly to overrule the National Statistician.

In some ways, those concerns echo the Minister’s response to the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks, which would give the board the power to direct Departments. The Minister indicated that the board should focus not on directing people, but on monitoring and scrutinising how they carry out their functions. The issue is one of some subtlety and there is confusion, which is why I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say. I hope that he will be able to reassure me and those who have raised the concerns, because it is not easy to get to the bottom of the matter.

Another concern about clause 29 relates to subsection (1), which states:

“The National Statistician is also to be the chief executive of the Board.”

The Minister might be able to reassure me, but I do not understand how the National Statistician can be the chief executive of the board when, in theory, there is to be a split between assessment and production roles. My understanding is that the Bill is structured to keep the National Statistician out of the assessment process, but to make her chief executive of the board indicates that she will have important assessment powers as well as her production role. Surely the subsection therefore undermines the split of functions in the board that the Government envisage.

The Opposition tabled amendment No. 80 to attempt to make the National Statistician the chief executive not of the board as a whole, but of the executive office to be set up under clause 29(5). I understand that the Government envisage that the production work carried out by the board will be formally delegated to the executive office, which, in effect, will replace the ONS, which is formally abolished by the Bill. Will the Minister expand on the background to that change and the way in which the delegation will work in practice, to reassure those who are concerned about what they regard as a merging and blurring of executive and scrutiny functions?

The second big issue raised by this group of amendments is the office of National Statistician. It is a pivotal role in both the existing and the proposed structures for the statistical system. If the reform is to achieve its goals, it is vital that the status and authority of the National Statistician is strengthened by the Bill and that the functions of her office are clearly defined. The reforms must enable her to provide effective leadership of the statistical system. We must ensure that she has real authority and that her views and concerns have an impact right across Government and statistical production. That is why I would be particularly pleased by the strengthening of her position through amendments Nos. 15 and 16, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks.

The reforms should make clear provision for the professional authority of the National Statistician. That point was made strongly to the Treasury Committee by the Canadian chief statistician, Dr. Ivan Fellegi. He felt that the role set out for the National Statistician in the Government’s consultation document was weak and saw it as a major defect in the proposals. Some of the amendments in the group are intended to deal with Dr. Fellegi’s concerns, many of which were acknowledged as important by the Treasury Committee.

Amendment No. 97 emphasises the vital leadership role of the National Statistician and would make explicit the fact that she should be the Government’s chief adviser on official statistics, including on matters relating to their planning, production and quality. I hope that that is implicit in the Bill, but those are vital tasks and it would send a strong signal of the status accorded the National Statistician if they were given explicit recognition. Some members of the statistical community have expressed the concern that in the past Governments have failed to engage in effective planning for statistical production. An explicit recognition of the importance of that task would be valuable; if that is not possible, recognition by the Minister today of the importance of the planning process would be welcomed.

Amendments Nos. 29 and 98 would ensure that the National Statistician’s remit includes the co-ordination of statistical production across the Government and ensuring that the production of official statistics across the UK is consistent. The importance of co-ordination has been emphasised by a range of expert groups. There is grave concern that past efforts to co-ordinate statistical production have been insufficiently effective. Given that the Bill is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—statistics Bills come only every 60 years—we should use it to try to put that problem right.

The amendments also raise the question of consistency. Clearly, it is vital that we address the concerns expressed about the fragmentation of UK statistics and the difficulty of obtaining information to cover the whole country. It is extremely welcome that the Bill proposes a framework that is to apply across the United Kingdom. I pay tribute to the work that the Minister must have done to bring that about; it cannot have been an easy political task, and he deserves the Committee’s congratulations.

Lack of consistency has been a significant problem that needs to be solved; the Royal Statistical Society has described it as “serious and worsening”. The chairman of its national statistics working party, John Pullinger, told the Treasury Committee that the problem was so significant that last time around there were three different censuses—for England, Scotland and Wales—instead of a single UK one. During our scrutiny of the Bill, we should try to ensure that the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have equal access to statistics produced according to principles of integrity, impartiality and honesty. That is why we welcome the extension of the Bill to the whole United Kingdom. However, if the National Statistician were given the explicit task of promoting the consistency of official statistics across the UK, that would send a visible signal about the importance that the Government clearly attach to the issue.

Amendments Nos. 115 and 116 would impose the efficiency obligations in clause 26 on the National Statistician. Unlike most of the other amendments in the group, which would substitute the words “National Statistician” for “Board”, amendments Nos. 115 and 116 would impose the duty on both institutions. Clause 26 contains sensible provisions on minimising the burdens placed on businesses and individuals affected by statistical collection, and the Opposition will return to that issue at another point. However, given the important role that the National Statistician should play in the production of statistics, it makes sense for the efficiency requirements to apply to her and her office as well as to the board.

I welcome amendments Nos. 118 and 119, which would provide very useful parliamentary input into the appointment of the national statistician. They would enhance parliamentary scrutiny in respect of the statistical system as a whole. In many ways, the reasons for supporting the amendments would be similar to those for supporting the previous group about the importance of hands-on parliamentary scrutiny of the statistical system. The amendments would also give parliamentary recognition to the importance of the role of National Statistician. We want to make hers a household name, and having hearings in Parliament and increasing parliamentary scrutiny of the appointments process would strengthen and enhance the role of National Statistician.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I should like to clarify something. The hon. Lady referred to amendments Nos. 118 and 119, but they are not in the group that we are discussing.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I might have mixed up the numbers; I meant to say amendments Nos. 188 and 189. I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s correction and apologise.

Finally, I appeal to the Minister to assist the Committee by providing clarification on those important questions. I hope that he can allay the fears that I have expressed and those expressed by the many people who are very keen to see the structure work. We want a rational separation of the roles of scrutiny and delivery and to ensure that the Bill achieves its purposes.

Debate adjourned.—[Kevin Brennan.]