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Government Statistics

My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, on securing this debate on statistics—at least I do so in so far as it serves a common end; namely, to increase the public’s confidence in statistics and in the Government’s use of them. The Government recognise that prior to the events of the past two years, which have been described, there was a very low opinion of government statistics. We have sought to put that right through action that we have taken. It is amazing to recall that the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 was the first major piece of statistical legislation for 60 years, and was designed to improve the quality of, and trust in, official statistics. It created a non-ministerial department: the UK Statistics Authority. This authority effectively replaced the Ministers at the Treasury as the top layer of governance for the ONS, the Office for National Statistics. The ONS, which is the biggest producer of official statistics in the UK, always produced its figures free from political interference, but with this change in governance arrangements, it can now be seen quite clearly to be at a distance from Ministers. This is intended to increase public trust in ONS statistics. Of course, we are aware that a great many official statistics do not come from the ONS at all. To reassure the public of the high quality of the statistics produced throughout the statistical system, the Act made provision for the independent assessment of national statistics. As we have heard, that role is carried out by the head of assessment who reports to the authority publicly, who has published the new code of practice for official statistics, and who cannot be involved in the production of statistics, so he is able independently to assess statistics produced across government, including by the ONS. I am very grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Moser and Lord Rowe-Beddoe, for their expressions of confidence in the system that we are seeking to put in place, which will improve the performance of statistics. I might almost imagine that a general election was taking place because the non-partisan debates that we normally have on statistics in this House seemed to be slightly overtaken in this instance by the making of rather crude party political points. If I were to indulge in the same practice, I would point out that in my mid-career I seem to recall 29 changes to unemployment statistics between 1980 and 1997. I also seem to recall a reduction in staff of a fifth—from 250 to 200—in the then statistics collecting organisation. However, as we are not being party political, I will not do so. I express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for not repeating—as he did when we debated this previously—his rather savage but elegant attack on the Government. I do so if only because the bruises have only just faded in the past two or three days. The major point made in the debate—I do not think that many noble Lords would disagree with this—concerned the Liaison Committee’s recommendation that there should be a Joint Committee. Ultimately, that is for Parliament to decide. Although the Government have an influence in that matter, we follow the overriding principle that departmental scrutiny of public bodies falls to the committees responsible for that. The question arose of whether the Public Administration Committee could undertake this role. There seems to be no evidence—at least to date—that it cannot do so. The committee has a long experience of oversight of cross-government activity by virtue of its experience in scrutinising the work of the Cabinet Office. The committee has already had four sessions looking into this area, which will be the subject of a report, and I have no doubt that your Lordships’ House and those within it who hold the very strong view that the situation would be improved by a Joint Committee will continue to press that point on every occasion. I should only point out to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that I come from Cumbria, which has the finest chickens it is possible to eat—many of them raised on the estate of a former Member, Lord Lowther. However, the important thing with chickens is of course not to count them too early or before they are hatched.