Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I, too, welcome the Minister to her new position. I also invite her, however, to take a new position on ministerial pre-release access. The Minister will be well aware that when the Treasury Sub-Committee, on which she and I sat, considered the independence of statistics last year, our guiding principle and second recommendation was:"““Regardless of the detail of the Government’s final proposals, we consider it essential that the Government ensures that its proposals secure both sufficient independence and sufficient perceived independence in the statistical system.””" For the record at least, I note that she put her name to that recommendation, and to the whole report, notwithstanding her long, rambling excuse as to why she signed up to it but did not attend half the meetings. I remind the Minister, however, that the then Financial Secretary, the hon. Member for Wentworth (John Healey) told the Committee during evidence that he"““would certainly accept that the pre-release arrangements contribute to the perception of interference in statistics.””" He also said:"““Part of the drive to legislate now to entrench the independence is to deal with some of the problems that are still there in perception.””" Actual independence and perceived independence are intimately connected, and the Government’s rejection of the Lords amendments on pre-release strikes a blow against both. There are concrete examples of abuse from the Statistics Commission. Whether we consider the leak of unemployment figures to the ““Today”” programme, or the former Prime Minister letting them slip while at a TUC conference, pre-release has certainly had problems. The perception of abuse, however, is more important, as has been acknowledged by the Phillis review and many other commentators since. Lord Moser, about whom we have heard much today and whose name was on the amendments, said that the Government’s approach to the issue was ““astonishing””. He said:"““No other single change would send a clearer signal to the public and users than this.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 May 2007; Vol. 459, c. 1076.]"