Pre-release Access to Official Statistics Order 2008

I thank the Minister for his introduction to the debate and the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for reminding us of the issues which remained on the table when we differed from the Government at the end of the Bill’s consideration last year. I have a few questions of the Minister, some narrowly related to the order and some more general. We welcome the fact that there is now a restriction on pre-release. We argued strongly at the time that 24 hours as the norm was too long. The order provides that pre-release may be granted up to 24 hours. Does that mean that the Government will in every case take 24 hours as the norm, or can the Minister envisage circumstances in which the period would be significantly shorter? The order allows a significantly shorter period; indeed, it would allow the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, which we support, to have no pre-release period. Do the Government think that it will be 24 hours in every case? Although it was nearly five days in some cases, in others the tradition has been that the pre-release period was significantly shorter. The Minister referred to a review after 12 months which would, among other things, consider the extent to which the new regime had increased trust in statistics. Will the Government or the Statistics Board undertake a survey to get a feel of whether trust has increased? When we were debating the Bill, well over 70 per cent of people, when asked, said that they had no faith in any government statistic. Do the Government or the Statistics Board plan to have a time series so that we can see whether the Act is having an effect on people’s perception of statistics? One of the other provisions in the Act which is not referred to in this order but is hugely significant in terms of the way that it operates relates to the fact that the management of the release of information will be through a hub in the Cabinet Office. Is that hub up and working, and are the Government satisfied that those arrangements—which are literally as well as figuratively the central part of the new system—are now operating satisfactorily? Can the Minister also bring us up to speed on one of the other major issues that we debated when the Bill was going through the House? I refer to the staffing problems that were arising for the UK Statistics Authority in the light of its move to Newport. Considerable concern was expressed that key economic data would not be released on time because of staff shortages. I should very much welcome an update from the Minister on how that staffing situation stands. Finally, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, that there has been far too much leaking. However, does the Minister agree that provisions such as this have no value if those at the highest level of government feel capable of leaking the most sensitive information to senior journalists, as happened on the eve of the Government taking a major stake in the banks?