Clause 3
Statistics and Registration Service Bill
5:00 pm
Stewart Hosie (Spokesperson (Economy; Home Affairs; Treasury; Women); Dundee East, Scottish National Party)
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.