Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I start by congratulating the Exchequer Secretary on her appointment and by welcoming her to the Front Bench again. Like my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke), the shadow Economic Secretary, I pay tribute to the work done by her predecessor, the hon. Member for Wentworth (John Healey), in minding the Bill. Although in some respects he and I disagreed fundamentally about it, he worked hard on it and tried to improve it as it went through its parliamentary process. The Opposition are pleased to support the Lords amendments in this group on release and pre-release. I would like to look first at Lords amendment No. 14, which relates to the board’s power to set the rules determining the release of Government statistics. Although it is often overlooked in the heated debate on pre-release, ensuring that the principles of objectivity and integrity govern the release of statistics is probably as important as pre-release, if not more so. Lords amendment No. 14 specifies that the code should cover the location from which the release is made, the time at which it should be made, and the persons responsible for it. It addresses what Professor Tim Holt of the Royal Statistical Society described as"““an impossible tension at the heart of the release process””," whereby the responsibility for explaining the figures and defending departmental performance is vested in the same people. The spin placed on the data when they are first announced can be critical to the news coverage that they receive. Political influence on the process of release is a significant factor in undermining public trust in official figures. The Opposition therefore believe that it is important that the rules governing release of statistics should provide for a separation of the two functions of announcing statistical work and commenting on it and justifying ministerial performance. The physical separation envisaged by the central hub—announced on Second Reading by the then Financial Secretary, the hon. Member for Wentworth—is welcome. However, we have yet to hear much detail on how that hub will operate in practice and whether the board will have the final say over how it operates. We support amendment No. 14 as it would provide a welcome guarantee that the board could specify the people responsible for the release of data and ensure that they are distinct from the departmental officials providing comment on them. I shall now turn to my second and more high profile point. As my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) said in Committee, the Government’s proposal to exclude pre-release rules from the code of practice and the remit of the new statistics board leaves a black hole in the middle of the proposed legislation. The Opposition believe that, if this reform is to succeed in rebuilding trust in official figures, the rules on pre-release access to statistics should be in the hands of the statistics board and the new independent framework established by the proposed legislation, and not left in the hands of Ministers. My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon) has a distinguished record on statistical matters going back a number of years. He stated in Committee that the Government approach in the Bill"““is like giving batsmen the ability to decide whether the leg before wicket rule should apply to them. It is wrong in principle and wrong in practice.””––[Official Report, Statistics and Registration Service Public Bill Committee, 23 January 2007; c. 170.]" Lord Turnbull said in the other place:"““I am not happy with the rather brusque wording of the Bill in Clause 11, which in effect tells the board to keep its nose out of setting release times and leaving Ministers to help themselves to as much time as they want.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 March 2007; Vol. 690, c. 1484.]" According to the Government, the thrust of the reform is to put trust in the board to take important decisions on how our statistical system should operate. It is therefore striking that the Government have singled out this element of the rules on statistics as one where Ministers will retain their grip and the political advantages that that gives them. The onus is on the Government to show why a special exception needs to be made in the case of pre-release rules when the Bill allows so many other important decisions to be made by the board or the national statistician and not by Ministers. I ask the Exchequer Secretary a simple question: if we can trust the board to take so many important decisions—including on key aspects of how the retail prices index will operate—why cannot we trust it on pre-release as well? The truth is that certain major Departments are determined to keep control over early access to their sensitive social statistics. They are aware of the value of the in-built advantage they receive from widespread early access to departmental data, sometimes days in advance of publication. That enables them to shape and influence the presentation of figures and engage in a softening-up process. The longer the period allowed for pre-release, the greater the opportunity for political mischief through spinning and interpreting the data. That gives Ministers an invaluable tool in the process that Professor Roger Jowell of City university described as ““discounting bad news”” in advance of publication to divert attention from what might be an inconvenient truth. As the hon. Member for Hove (Ms Barlow) memorably let slip in Committee, it enables Ministers to give official statistics the ““treatment”” that they deem appropriate. That ““treatment”” generally has more to do with spin than with any urgent policy measures needed to respond to the figures in question. Lax pre-release rules maximise the opportunities for Ministers to spin the figures and push the headline that they want to see in the next day’s papers. Even civil servants without party political motivation are not immune in this respect; they might wish to emphasise certain elements in statistics in order to place their Department in the best, or least unfavourable, light. The Statistics Commission, the Royal Statistical Society, the statistics users forum, the Treasury Committee, almost every respondent to the consultation and almost all the Back Benchers who spoke in the House of Lords on this issue want pre-release rules to be reformed and restricted and the board to be put in the driving seat on what the rules should be. Charles Bean from the Bank of England also noted the advantages of restricting ministerial pre-release in terms of the public’s perception of the integrity of the statistical processes. The Labour-dominated Treasury Committee—it includes six former Ministers and the Exchequer Secretary herself—concluded that an advance notice period of three hours was generally sufficient. Even the then Financial Secretary acknowledged when he gave evidence to the Treasury Committee that current pre-release arrangements"““contribute to the perception of interference in statistics.””" During the debates in the other place, Lord Moser—because of his unparalleled expertise, his opinion has rightly been prayed in aid repeatedly during the debate on the Bill—said of pre-release:"““I know from my years in charge of official statistics that hardly anything is more important than getting these rules right and making them acceptable.””" He said that he viewed pre-release rules as"““central to trust and confidence””" and stated:"““The way in which the Bill is drafted to deal with this issue is astonishing.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 May 2007; Vol. 691, c. 1074-75.]" He also pointed out, as I did in Committee, that the rules on pre-release have been relaxed and broadened over recent years. That point has been strongly made by Professor Tim Holt, who is a former head of the Government Statistical Service. Like many others, Professor Holt and Lord Moser pointed out that in the UK we give access to data to more people for a longer period and in respect of more data than in almost every other developed country.