Statistics and Registration Service Bill

My Lords, the issue of pre-release has been with us throughout these debates. I support the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and I shall explain how it fits into the context of the Bill as a whole. The whole thing started back in November 2005, when the Chancellor decided to legislate for independence in statistics, principally to improve public trust in official figures. The centrepiece was to be the new Statistics Board as a non-ministerial department. Most of us welcomed that as a general principle. In due course the Treasury published the details, after which there was the helpful public consultation period. The Bill then went to the other place, where it had a fairly easy ride, and reached your Lordships’ House earlier this year. From the beginning, the Bill was welcomed here as an initiative; I think that most of us recognised that the reforms, if properly set out and implemented, could be an historic improvement to our statistical system. We found the Bill flawed in many ways, and I think it fair to say that it has been significantly improved by your Lordships’ questions, debates and amendments. Indeed, I see it as a good example of how this House can improve complex legislation on even a very tricky and not particularly popular subject and make it fit for purpose, to use today’s jargon. In this case, that means a statistical system more remote from political involvement and more trusted throughout the whole of society, which it aims to serve. That we now have a good Bill owes a great deal to the former Financial Secretary, John Healey, who from the beginning worked on it tirelessly, very effectively and with constant courtesy to all involved. Now in the final stages, we also owe thanks to the Exchequer Secretary, Angela Eagle, who is clearly equally committed. The result is a number of vital improvements to and concessions on the original Bill. Here on the Floor of the House, the Bill has benefited from the energetic and positive involvement of the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, who managed to focus on it despite having, to put it mildly, a few other things on his plate. Much depended on the quality of the debate and amendments in this House. Although I do not want to embarrass individual colleagues, I express my admiration to those of your Lordships who have contributed, especially those on the opposition Front Benches who moved a number of crucial amendments. We have all been grateful throughout for the help from the Royal Statistical Society and its president, Tim Holt, and from the Statistics Commission and its chairman, David Rhind, and chief executive, Richard Alldritt. They have all played a major part in briefing. This is an occasion to note the enormous contribution to the statistical world made by the commission in recent years, when it has become ever-more powerful and influential. The new board will be very wise if it chooses to build on many of the good examples set by the commission, whose annual report, published this morning, gives a good picture of its excellent work. Much will depend on the board, still to be established as a non-executive board. It faces numerous challenges, and reading through the various debates in Parliament will provide helpful background for its work. I have many hopes for it, including for what it does on things to do with release arrangements. Apart from that, I look to it for a comprehensive new code for regional and local interests; for total authority in professional matters for which the National Statistician will be in charge; for securing adequate resources for quality statistics; and, above all, together with the National Statistician, for overseeing the whole statistical system, not just ONS. Let me say for the last time that statistics from the policy departments are the problem, not those from ONS. It is there that quality is patchy and very sensitive to matters of public trust. We need think only of migration, crime, health, education and so forth. Most of the problems have an element of sensitivity, regarding not so much the quality of the statistics as the way in which they are used by Ministers, officials and the media. That is why this discussion about release and pre-release is crucial. As has been made clear in many of our discussions, none of us questions the principle of pre-release—that is not the issue—nor have we concentrated on the numbers game. Our emphasis throughout the debates has been on who is responsible for monitoring pre-release arrangements. To put that in context, let us remember the issues that surround pre-release. They are the time allowed between availability of statistics to Ministers and when they go public, the number of people who receive them, and the number of series involved. This country is now more generous—to put it positively—or more lax in all these respects. It is sad that we have become much more so in recent years. I do not want to make claims about my role in earlier years, but we succeeded many years ago in tightening up release arrangements considerably. It saddens me how lax they have become in our present day. That is why we have focused on this issue and why I stress that the outside statistical community looks to it more than to almost any other for what the Bill will do. That is why we keep on stressing how important it is that the role of the board in this area and the importance of the code are made explicit in the Bill. Perhaps I may be generous and acknowledge how much has been achieved in various ways since the Bill started its journey many months ago. Seriously significant advances have been made. The first was made by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who responded to public debates early on by reducing pre-release access from a maximum of five days to 40.5 hours. I shall not spend time talking about market-sensitive data; that is a separate problem. We welcomed the reduction as a step in the right direction, though we emphasised that it did not go nearly far enough; indeed, it went nowhere near what is common in almost every other country, which is either zero pre-release or a few hours. We can now welcome the Prime Minister’s initiative, which was announced last week—noble Lords have already referred to it—of a further reduction to 24 hours. I welcome this most warmly and recognise the Prime Minister’s commitment to this subject. I hope that in due course we will go much further—to a few hours rather than 24 hours—but the trend line, when extrapolated, from five days to one day in a period of just a few months is encouraging to me as a statistician. In a few years, when I shall probably no longer be here because of death—nothing else—we may reach close to zero. That is very encouraging, as is the Prime Minister’s commitment to reduce the number of people who will gain pre-access. Also encouraging is the commitment from the Exchequer Secretary on secondary legislation and its details. As I understood it from the Minister today, that is a significant step forward. It will ensure that all the details of pre-release will be in the secondary legislation and, even more important, that consultation will be held with the shadow or the actual board before it is finalised. I find that very encouraging, but it takes me back to my final point. Despite these improvements, which show that on the substance and essence of pre-release we are all following the same lines, the role of the board and code must somehow be recognised in the Bill. I see no difference in attitude or essence between any of us in this discussion, and I genuinely cannot understand why the Government still resist introducing a simple amendment giving the board power to monitor—quite a weak word—pre-release arrangements and setting that out as part of the code. In conclusion, we now have a Bill that is extremely helpful and could historically lead to a new statistical system, except that it misses out on one particular. Unfortunately, that particular—pre-release—is probably the most known about in the statistical community and is in some ways indicative of the Government’s ultimate attitude to the whole subject of public trust. Our original amendment is not the only way; there are very simple ways in which to include a reference to the role of the board and the code in the Bill and not only in secondary legislation. The matter is not overspecialised or specific; it is central. I still hope that it is not too late for the Government to think again on the only aspect that keeps this from being a really good Bill and makes it flawed in one particular. As I say, there are various ways in which to introduce this measure. The key point is that to have the provision, however well formulated, in secondary legislation does not help public trust or confidence. It must be in the Bill.