Official Statistics Order 2009

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for his remarks, with which I want to associate myself. As a new boy in this place, hearing distinguished Members holding the Government to account over the quality of statistics is very impressive and serious. The charge that was made was extremely serious, and I hope that the Minister will respond to it in his comments and that the Government will adhere to it in going forward. I make a couple of pleas in considering these orders. The order comes up, we are presented with a list of 54 deemed persons whom we are told are relevant, then we are told in the explanatory note on the back that, ""28 are new, and 10 are omitted"," from the last list. It would probably be helpful for debate if we could see asterisked or sorted in some way which ones are new and which have been dropped from the previous list. The accompanying Explanatory Memorandum gives one example of the ones that have been dropped—the Royal Air Force Museum—and, of course, nobody is going to pick on that. However, I am always slightly suspicious about 10 being omitted from the order last year when only one example is given. It would be helpful to see that information. I am very struck by, and associate myself with, the remarks made about Bank of England. In the midst of an economic crisis, when the centre of the debate is on the state of public finance, it would seem absolutely appropriate that the Bank of England should be included in that schedule along with many other bodies that are directly associated with that effort. The whole statistical process has resonance; it is not just a debating point about the use or misuse of statistics. These statistics drive the allocation of scarce resources by the Government, so if they do not have veracity and cannot be trusted, we may be wasting money and spending it in the wrong place as well as understating the need in certain other areas. That is something else that I urge the Minister to give care to. On the guidance that is followed, we are told that we can have confidence in these statistics. However, as has been said, the guidance goes only as far as saying that those bodies specified in the order will be expected to follow the code—that all sounds good—as best they can. Is not being able to do so as best as they can an admissible excuse in this regard? I am also very interested in the fact that if the statistics comply with the code the board will approve them as national statistics. It would be useful to have a statistic about how many of those statistics have not received such approval and how many have been turned down. To see that level of detail would be useful. That speaks to the point of my noble friend Lord Jenkin, who said that, had there been extra scrutiny in this place and a Joint Committee, that is exactly the type of information which could come before it and help our debate. The horrendous case mentioned was the misuse of the knife crime statistics. The head of the UK Statistics Authority described the release of the figures as "premature, irregular and selective". He revealed that statisticians behind the data had tried to prevent the Government publishing the information—again as evidenced by my noble friend Lord Jenkin—and said that the data in their current form were "corrosive of public trust". That is a bold statement by the person now in charge of the accuracy of our statistics. I ask the Minister to reflect on that, certainly given that it has been raised on a couple of occasions, and hope that we might get a response. Paragraph 8.2 of the Explanatory Notes, under the heading "Consultation outcome", states: ""Bodies that have been included in the order have been consulted … those bodies that were in the first order were consulted last year … This has generally been done by the statistical Head of Profession in each Government department contacting those bodies which are sponsored by that department"." Again, that is the type of information—that is, the extent and nature of the consultation, and the feedback from it—that would be extremely helpful in discussing this order. It is clear that the objective of the statistics order is to build trust in national statistics. We have heard it argued how those statistics have been misused in the past in a grossly irresponsible way and how there is a need for greater scrutiny. When this order was discussed in another place, it took 11 minutes. The fact that we are up to 34 minutes and counting speaks of the importance that we at this end attach to these matters, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.