Official Statistics Order 2008

I thank the Minister for explaining the order. We on this side of the Committee supported the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, the strengthening of which we are proud to have contributed to as it passed through both Houses. For all of us, as the Minister said, the integrity of statistics is important. We welcome the Statistics Board, and look forward to its work guarding against the spin which has so undermined public trust in statistics. There was a useful final report from the Statistics Commission last week on first releases, from which it was clear that, of the 37 sets of statistics released in 2007 that it chose to review, judged under six different sets of parameters, 20 per cent got a red traffic light, 57 per cent scored an amber, and only 23 per cent got a green light. That is some indictment, and shows the magnitude of the task ahead of the Statistics Board. There also remains an issue concerning the distinction between national and official statistics. We who are closely involved might understand the difference, but a layman, I suggest, will have considerable difficulty understanding it and, importantly, the different level of scrutiny applied to each. There is the important matter of the lack of independence in the selection of statistics referred to the Statistics Board. It is apparently for Ministers to refer a particular series of statistics to the board to consider whether such figures should be national statistics. Surely it ought to be for the Statistics Board rather than Ministers to decide what statistics should be defined as national statistics. Only national statistics will have to comply with the code of practice. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but the Minister decides whether an official series of statistics is suitable for reference to the board. Only then can the board decide whether that should be a national statistic, in which case the code of practice should apply or it loses its designation. Furthermore, if the Statistics Board has a code of practice to ensure the rigour of the preparation and production of statistics, should it not apply to all official statistics, not just national ones, especially, as I mentioned earlier, if no layman can be expected to appreciate the difference between them? This brings me to the lack of an appropriate sanction for failure to comply with the code. Section 13 of the Act makes it clear that failure to comply with the code, "““in relation to any statistics””," means that the designation of the statistics as national statistics may not be confirmed. It goes on: "““(but no action shall lie in relation to any such failure)””." No action? Surely, if we have a code of practice that is designed to ensure the integrity of statistics and the body responsible for producing that series, especially if it is a government department, fails to meet the requirement of the code, just to have the designation ““national”” removed is not much of a sanction. The code needs to have teeth so that deficiencies can be remedied. There also remains the important issue over the timing of the pre-release of statistics to Ministers. Despite the fact that pre-release periods were much reduced by the Act, we on these Benches still think that they are too long. We, and I am sure the new Statistics Board, will be keeping that under review. My honourable friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells referred in the other place on Thursday to the fact that, under Section 11, the code of practice is not to deal with the pre-release access to official statistics. He pointed out that decisions on the timing of pre-release access will be handled by the appropriate authority, which rather astonishingly in the circumstances is the Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office rather than the Statistics Board. That will do little to enhance public confidence in the process of the release of statistics. The Minister’s answer was simply that there had been consultation and that the department would have to consider its findings before it reported back. It seems, to put it mildly, rather odd that we are being asked to wade through this order before that reporting back has been done. I note from the first Liaison Committee report of the 2007-08 Session, in response to a case powerfully put by my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding, that the Leader of the House agreed to relay to the Leader of the other place the committee’s recommendation that a Joint Committee of both Houses should be established to scrutinise the Statistics Board. I gave notice to the Minister that I would be asking him today whether the Leader of the House had had a response from the Leader of the other place, and if so what that answer was. I note from the debate on this order in the other place on Thursday that the Minister responded to the same question that the Select Committee on Public Administration was the selected parliamentary scrutineer of the Statistics Board. I would be grateful to hear from the Minister why the Government think that a Committee of a single House, with already a very high remit, is more appropriate for this function than a specialist Joint Committee of both Houses with specific expertise in statistics that your Lordships’ House can bring. The latter, as my honourable friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells said on Thursday, would provide greater reassurance to the public over the integrity of the preparation and release of statistical information. Lastly, I observe that there is a haphazardness about the process of selection of the statistics that are covered by the order. The Minister went some way towards explaining this, but the list of bodies producing statistics so covered is in fact fairly short, containing only 37 bodies ranging from the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland to the various Armed Forces museums via some, but surely not all, the agencies producing statistics on various important government services. I would be grateful if the Minister could expand on the process for that selection. He mentioned that there would be more such bodies and more such orders. Perhaps he could explain why they cannot be dealt with here. We welcome the broad thrust of the order, but it gives rise to rather more questions than it answers. I am worried that it will neither improve the integrity of statistics nor contribute to an increase in public confidence in them. It is significant that, in its final report published last week, the Statistics Commission, which is about to be wound up, singled out for criticism no fewer than three government departments, saying that they went, "““to some lengths to ensure that the press receive ‘the departmental line’ on the figures, through separate press releases giving a departmental steer on the numbers with attributable quotes from ministers””." That emphasises, as I said earlier, the scope of the problem facing the Statistics Board. We look to the Minister for an assurance that things will improve dramatically.