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Government Statistics

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom for introducing this debate. Sadly, the Government have not used statistics in a manner that inspires confidence. Figures have been used as a tool to spin rather than to provide accurate information. An example of that was the publication in 2008 of the Home Office knife crime figures, to which my noble friend Lord Hamilton referred and which I will not repeat. However, it is worth repeating Sir Michael Scholar’s words that provoked the attack to which my noble friend referred. Sir Michael described the figures as, ""premature, irregular and selective … corrosive of public trust"," and as breaching, ""several parts of the Office for National Statistics code of practice"," to which the noble Lord, Lord Moser, referred. Another example is the publication in January 2009 showing a 10.2 per cent drop in first-time offenders in the criminal justice system. It later emerged that 19,000 young people had been left off the official release. If they had been included, the Government’s claim of a 10 per cent fall would have been wholly or largely wiped out. The former head of the Youth Justice Board, Rod Morgan, referred to those figures as "smoke and mirror ploys". There is also the immigration example referred to by my noble friend Lord Jenkin. There has been consistent criticism, both by statisticians and others, nearly all of whom have called for an end to the pre-release of statistics. The Royal Statistical Society commented that pre-release, ""leads to mistrust of the independence of official statistics"." Figures should be released simultaneously to one and all. This, as well as the Joint Committee to which a number of noble Lords have referred this evening, is especially important when the narrow borderline between showing statistics in the most favourable light and the distortion of information has not always been observed. Pre-release to government departments enables them to hog the headlines with their spin. By the time others have analysed the information, the story has frequently gone cold and a corrected interpretation is unlikely to receive the same prominence—unless, as my noble friends Lord Hamilton and Lord Goschen pointed out, there is a requirement for anyone who has been criticising the Government to be thoroughly rubbished. In many major countries, there is no pre-release, or it is significantly restricted. In the USA, the President receives figures only half an hour before they are published. The Government claim that early release is in the public interest as it enables questions to be answered promptly, but the inability to distinguish the borderline between what is and is not acceptable destroys that argument. To rebuild confidence in statistics, I hope that the noble Lord will listen to what the noble Lord, Lord Rowe-Beddoe, said and will reconsider the early release of statistics.