21.Section 3 requires the Scottish Ministers to commission an independent review of the impact of the reduction and removal of pre-release access to GDP and retail sales statistics. The review is to be commissioned as soon as practicable after a 3-year period (starting with Royal Assent), so that, by the time the review begins, there will have been one year’s experience of each of the following: pre-release access capped at one working day, pre-release access capped at four hours, and a ban on pre-release access. The person or organisation appointed to conduct the review must report to Ministers, who in turn must publish the report and lay a copy before the Parliament.
22.As noted above (paragraph 13), if the report recommends that Ministers should be entitled to authorise pre-release access to GDP or retail sales statistics, Ministers could then make an order (under section 11 of the 2007 Act) to give effect to that recommendation, and this would not be prohibited by the operation of new section 11A(1). By virtue of section 65(6) of the 2007 Act, any such order would require to be laid in draft before, and approved by resolution of, the Parliament.