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Government Statistics

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hamilton has launched a debate which so far has led us into some interesting byways—not only his speech about the costs of local government reorganisation but the fascinating remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, about the impact of the census, the questions that are asked, and the need to get those right. The business managers are wise to have originally given us three minutes, because it means that we have at least to start off with a very short speech. I want to pick up just one point: the one with which the noble Lord, Lord Moser, who played such a notable part in the proceedings on the statistics Bill, finished his speech. As he said, the Act provides that the new UK Statistics Authority—which was originally called the Statistics Board but has wisely changed its name—should be accountable to Parliament. During the Bill’s passage many noble Lords argued that the authority should report to both Houses, ideally via a Joint Committee of both Houses. It may well be within the recollection of the House that I raised this issue again in a short debate on 29 November 2007. With the support of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, who has proved to be an immense source of wisdom on this issue, I tabled a paper to go to the Liaison Committee of this House calling for a Joint Committee. The Select Committee unanimously accepted the recommendation. On the same day it rejected three or four other proposals but it did accept mine, which was endorsed by the whole House. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Moser, said, Ministers’ preferred solution was adopted in the other place—namely that there should be accountability only to a committee of the other place: a House of Commons Select Committee. The other place subsequently recommended that it should be the Public Administration Committee. Some of the recent controversies surrounding the issue of statistics have already been mentioned. The Public Administration Committee has therefore had to deal with two serious statistics issues. The Home Office’s release last December of certain statistics about knife crime has already been mentioned. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Brett, that I do not intend to repeat what I said at some length in the debate on 16 March. The other issue, more recently, is the ONS’s controversial publication of certain statistics about the numbers of immigrants in the UK workforce. My noble friend Lord Hamilton mentioned that. I have taken the trouble to read a lot of the evidence that was given by Mr Phil Woolas to the Select Committee at the other end, and the way in which the committee handled it was very impressive. Indeed, I have no complaints about or criticism of the Select Committee. It certainly does not pull its punches. It has quite rightly identified the two areas that it wanted to investigate. However, it has a very heavy agenda, most of which has nothing whatever to do with statistics. Moreover, it is a fact—I checked this today with the clerk to the committee—that it has not yet issued the reports on these two matters of knife crime and immigration statistics. If anything, that confirms my view that this House’s proposal was indeed the right and wise one. It would have been much better if this House’s view had been accepted and the proposal to establish a separate Joint Committee of both Houses, with the sole remit of holding the UK Statistics Authority to account, had been accepted. I know that that has the support of Sir Michael Scholar, for he has told me so in no uncertain terms. I can also tell the House—perhaps this is of even greater interest—that I have been assured more than once by the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, that the next Conservative Government will accept the view of this House that there should be a Joint Committee of both Houses to undertake this work. Let us hope that this House will not have to wait too long for its unanimous view to be implemented. That is something which I am sure we will all welcome.