---

Government Statistics

My Lords, I am sure that we are all very grateful for those two bits of good news: that the Marine and Coastal Access Bill has finally ended after so long; and that noble Lords whose names are on the speakers’ list can now speak for six minutes rather than three. I am afraid that I am rather a Johnny come lately to the world of statistics and I fully acknowledge that there are much greater experts than me in your Lordships’ House. I welcome many of them here today and the fact that they have an opportunity to speak. Through a mutual acquaintance, I met Professor Michael Chisholm, a retired Cambridge don, who became interested in the statistics that were used to promote unitary authorities. He had previously sat on a local government boundary commission. I was most grateful for his guidance because, as I said, I am a novice in the world of statistics. Professor Chilsholm has been troubled by the statistics used to justify the creation of unitary authorities and wrote a book in collaboration with Professor Steve Leach entitled, Botched Business. I am pretty dispassionate about how local government is organised. Instinctively one worries when local government becomes less local, but if significant savings for council tax payers can be achieved, maybe the price of more distant local government is worth paying. If the argument hinges on savings, the figures for savings have to be right. Professor Chisholm reveals that in a Parliamentary Answer on 12 May this year, the Minister stated that the new unitary authorities estimated restructuring costs at £138 million, with an outturn of £135 million. Not bad, on the face of it; quite an accurate forecast. Except that if you take the councils’ figures, the costs are £182 million. If you exclude Cornwall, where recurrent savings have not been very clearly divided, they are still £158 million. Durham County Council estimated that it will save £12.5 million in its bid to be a unitary authority, which includes £5.2 million savings on adult well-being and health plus children and young people's services, which it already runs, so it is difficult to see how they can be savings. Those are massive miscalculations and cast doubt on all other statistical forecasts in unitary authority bids. Many similar discrepancies are to be found in widely different areas of government activity. I fear that, despite what has changed, many of the statistics are still extremely questionable in every way. Your Lordships will be well acquainted with the debacle of the issue of the knife crime statistics. I will not dwell on that saga at length today, but suffice it to say that on 11 December, a special adviser at No. 10 prematurely published provisional statistics that had come from the National Health Service that showed that the number of teenagers admitted to hospital with knife wounds had fallen by 27 per cent. That was limited to 10 priority areas. In fact, the figures for knife crime since this Government took power show an increase of 34 per cent, and knife crime is at the moment at an all-time high. Despite objections from the statistics authority, the Prime Minister insisted that those statistics should be released. So we have the story of a political adviser jumping on uncollaborated statistics and a Prime Minister keen to tell a good political story that knife crime was falling. What do the Government do? First, the Home Secretary apologises. Why was it not the Prime Minister? The figures were distorted by an official working for him in No. 10, and he insisted on their release. We have come to learn, have we not, that the Prime Minister does not do apologies. It is what followed that is truly perturbing. The pit bull terriers were released. I can hear noble Lords asking whether pit bull terriers were not banned under the Dangerous Dogs Act introduced by my noble friend Lord Baker some years ago. No, pit bull terriers are still alive and well in Whitehall; they are now called special advisers. Those attack dogs went into action and articles appeared besmirching the reputation of Sir Michael Scholar, the chairman of the United Kingdom Statistics Authority. Michael Scholar is public service at its best. He was permanent secretary in the Welsh Office and then at the DTI and he is now the president of St. John's College, Oxford. It was contemptible to suggest that the independent United Kingdom Statistics Authority was picking up on misleading statistics on knife crime because Sir Michael Scholar was seeking revenge because his son and other dedicated public servants had been moved out of the Prime Minister’s private office. That saga speaks volumes for the way that this Government do business. There was an interesting letter dated 27 February from Kevin Brennan, Member of Parliament and Minister for the Third Sector, to Tony Wright, chairman of the Public Administration Select Committee. It stated that on 22 July last year, 73 special advisers were in Whitehall, of which 24 were in Downing Street. I worked in No. 10 as Parliamentary Private Secretary to my noble friend Lady Thatcher when she was Prime Minister. At that stage, there was a total of 65 people in all working in No. 10 Downing Street. One of them was reluctant to describe himself as a special adviser. First, Sir Stephen Sherbourne and then John Whittingdale, now Member of Parliament for Colchester, were the only political advisers who worked permanently there. You have to ask: where do all these people go in Downing Street? I think that the answer is that they threw the Whips out of No. 12 Downing Street and packed many of them in there, where they are involved in spinning and campaigning endlessly as a sort of press unit. Another incident of dispute occurred in February this year when the UK Statistics Authority published figures showing that one in nine UK residents working here were from abroad. This came after the ill advised and infamous speech by the Prime Minister about British jobs for British workers. What was the Government’s response? It was a rant from the Minister with responsibility for immigration, Mr Phil Woolas, that the Office for National Statistics had highlighted the figures because they were topical. That was at best naive and at worst sinister. I suppose we should be grateful that Phil Woolas was at least his own attack dog in this incident and did not rely on an unattributable briefing so dear to the heart of this Government. Phil Woolas’s attack on the independent UK Statistics Authority was typical of the reaction of this Government to statistics they do not like. The Government deserve congratulation on setting up the UK Statistics Authority, but you cannot create an independent body to monitor national statistics and then complain when it acts independently. Another important aspect of dealing with statistics is the period for which departments can sit on statistics before they have to release them. It is sad that Scotland argues that it is a special case and must have five days for this; Wales is still consulting. For UK legislation and in Northern Ireland, it is 24 hours, and less for market-sensitive information. There may be some reason why government departments want a little time to prepare a case to go with an announcement on statistics, but not 24 hours. I should have thought that a maximum of three hours was enough, although the Royal Statistical Society, which has done so much to raise the profile of statistics and improve control of them, thinks that they should be released without any time at all, as does my honourable friend the shadow Home Secretary in another place. The Government have made good advances with the introduction of impact assessments to demonstrate the financial costs and benefits of most primary legislation. Why can this information be found only on the internet? Should the impact assessment not be an addendum to any Bill and should it not subsequently be audited to find out how accurate the original calculations were? Almost more important, should impact assessments not be extended to secondary legislation? I am particularly mindful of orders enacting legislation from the EU, which always seem to be mindful of the benefits to individuals, but ignore the cost to taxpayers and employers. In summary, the Government have made some important advances in the supervision of statistics. They have set up the UK Statistics Authority, but many would argue that they had to do that because the culture of spin and misinformation had become so pervasive that it was damaging the whole body politic. However, there is still a steep mountain to climb. As my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding reminded the Grand Committee on 16 March, the United Kingdom comes 27th out of 27 EU nations when it comes to trust in government statistics. To think that the Italians and the Bulgars have greater faith in their government statistics than we do is deeply shaming. Let us take the independence of the UK Statistics Authority one step further; let us set up an independent national statistics commission and make it answerable to a Joint Committee of both Houses, in line with the recommendation of the Liaison Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull. That Joint Committee would reflect the expertise on statistics that your Lordships' House contains and the other place does not. It would also recognise that the House of Commons Public Administration Committee has many other areas of responsibly. Statistics are at the heart of how the public can judge government. They should play a major role in deciding how we legislate and whether we legislate at all. This Government have proved that they cannot be trusted with statistics; statistics must be put in the hands of those beyond reproach.