Pre-release Access to Official Statistics Order 2008

I am grateful to noble Lords who contributed to this short debate. I listened with the greatest interest to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, but his contribution could have been delivered in 2006 or 2007. In fact, it was delivered in 2006 and in 2007 by those who participated in debates on the Bill. I understand that he does not feel happy about certain aspects of the order that are now being taken forward. I understand his dissatisfaction with Parliament’s decisions, but he has to live with the fact that his arguments were not accepted either in this House or, much more crucially, in the other, democratically elected place. He can make promises on what he wants to change in the future, and he can certainly indicate his continued dissatisfaction if he so wishes, but he cannot expect me, at this Dispatch Box, to reiterate all the arguments that I put forward—I was going to say ““succinctly”” but will change the adverb—laboriously during the Bill’s passage, to the point where others were eventually either convinced or ground down by the sheer weight of the rhetoric. We have made it clear that we would carry out a review of this position in 12 months’ time, and we can return to the issues then. But all the criticisms that the noble Lord advanced related to the Bill which became an Act in the summer of 2007. Somewhat grudgingly, the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and, rather more generously, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, indicated that they welcomed the fact that pre-release was being restricted by the Act and that the time limits that obtained previously were being reduced. I have to say to noble Lords that other countries are involved in pre-release statistics, but I had the impression that it was being contended that the British Government were unique in suggesting that Ministers should be in a position to see the statistics before release. Well, I have a list of one or two minor countries, such as Germany, France, the United States, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, which all indulge in this practice. It was roundly condemned by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, but Governments find it to be essential in equipping Ministers to cope with material which in many cases is extremely complex and needs to be analysed. It was suggested that Ministers would dribble out information to their favoured journalists. I cannot think of a single occurrence of that during any Administration that we have had in the United Kingdom. We intend under the Act to tighten up on pre-release. There will be no time for the practice to which the noble Lord referred to occur—although he did not give any illustrations of where it had happened. I emphasise the obvious and crucial fact that the legislation takes official statistics out of the hands of government and puts them into the hands of the independent authority. Greater credit should therefore be given to this significant change. It is bound to take time to work through and win public confidence. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, spoke about the low degree of confidence in official statistics, but he will recognise that that the legislation sets out to address that by creating the independent authority. It will take time for the Act’s success to be seen. Being, like the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, a perceptive Member of this House, he will accept that official statistics tend to be in the eye of the beholder, and the extent to which they are believed reflects public perceptions of officialdom and, in particular, government. There will be fluctuations in that from time to time; Governments are used to having their reputation fluctuate during their period in office. However, a decent length of time in which we are able to judge the operation of the Act should bring the benefits which all sides of the House thought during the passage of the Bill should develop from independence of statistics. The order deals with the relatively narrow dimension of pre-release. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, asked whether the Cabinet Office is the hub of statistics. It is the base in which civil servants who serve the Government on statistics are located, which is why those who are here to support me today come not from Her Majesty’s Treasury, as they would have done if we had had this debate 18 months ago, but from the Cabinet Office. However, the hub of statistics is not the Cabinet Office but the Statistics Authority. That is whole point of our having relocated authority from a government department to an independent organisation. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, will feel reassured that the Statistics Authority needs time to be grounded in public confidence. But it has a pretty fair wind behind it thus far. I do not think that there has been, that I have seen, in any intelligent comments on the Statistics Authority, any comment that it is doing anything else than that it is doing the job that it was set up to do—which was, to be the central independent authority for government statistics and the crucial decisions thereto. Therefore, I look forward in due course to seeing the benefits of both the creation of the authority and the other dimensions of the Bill which improve public confidence in government statistics. Of course, this order is merely a small dimension of that aspect. The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, asked why the board did not report to Parliament via the Joint Committee. I remember us having that debate at some considerable length. The best way in which I may save the Committee’s time is if, perhaps, the noble Lord and I could have a gentle read through Hansard together, to my delight and his enlightenment over decisions taken in that area. On Question, Motion agreed to.