Statistics and Registration Service Bill

Unfortunately, only the Exchequer Secretary can answer her question, because the number of people who are given access to statistics will be determined by Ministers after the secondary legislation is presented to Parliament. I cannot answer her question. I hope that fewer people will gain access to statistics days in advance of publication, but I am unable to answer whether that will be the case. Her intervention highlights the very point that I am seeking to make. The fact that there is an unfavourable international comparison has been mentioned, and it was echoed by Lord Moser’s fellow Cross Bencher, Lord Turnbull. I hope that the House will pay particular heed to Lord Turnbull’s views on this issue, as he clearly has no political axe to grind and his long experience in government gives him great insight into the workings of Government and what Ministers reasonably need in pre-release access. He expressed dismay about how far away we are from international best practice and pronounced the existing arrangements to be unacceptable. The Opposition have accepted the case for the retention of pre-release access, but we are convinced of the need to tighten the rules. Statistics should be allowed to speak for themselves, with the rules strengthened to minimise ministerial interference and pre-emptive spin. The then Financial Secretary’s announcement on Second Reading that the five-day pre-release period for social data would be aligned with the 40.5-hour period for market-sensitive economic data is welcome—and we welcome the confirmation of that by the Exchequer Secretary this evening—but it simply does not go far enough and will be insufficient to restore trust in official figures. Lord Turnbull and others were right to say that a new norm of 40.5 hours is ““completely ridiculous.”” According to the evidence of the Royal Statistical Society to the Treasury Sub-Committee, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Poland allow no pre-release access at all. France allows one hour and Australia three hours, and in both cases access is restricted to a handful of key economic statistics. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks pointed out, it is remarkably difficult to track down the information on who is entitled to what data under the current pre-release rules. One has to find that by hunting through different departmental websites; no centralised site sets out all the data and there is no standardised format to present them.