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United Kingdom Statistics Authority

I am grateful for the support of the official Opposition for this appointment, although I wondered whether the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher) was going to declare an interest during his remarks. He might have forgotten—it is a failing of us all, I suppose—but if he looks at the inside cover of the report from which he quoted, he will see that he is still a member of the Public Administration Committee. He has very honourably absented himself ever since he joined Labour's Front-Bench team, but I hope that he will involve his party in putting forward a new nominee for the Committee, because it would be of great service to the Committee and the House. I make no personal criticism of him whatsoever. When he appeared before my Committee last week for his pre-appointment hearing, Andrew Dilnot was invited by the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) to reflect on a statement that he made in 2007 during the passage of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. Andrew Dilnot confirmed that he still held the view that he held then: that the passage of the 2007 Act, which set up the UK Statistics Authority, was"““a turning point. It has made possible something that otherwise was not possible, which is the recovery of a sense of independence and integrity for statistics…This Act gives the control and management of statistics back to Parliament…I think that was a very, very important step.””" I shall briefly remind the House of what the 2007 Act did. It established a new authority, now known as the UK Statistics Authority, with the statutory objective"““of promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good.””" To many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, that might seem rather a dry subject, but the public good in this instance is defined as"““informing the public about social and economic matters””" and"““assisting in the development and evaluation of public policy.””" This is serious stuff. The authority has the statutory duty"““to promote and safeguard the quality of official statistics, good practice in relation to official statistics and the comprehensiveness of official statistics””." In this respect, ““quality”” means the ““impartiality, accuracy and relevance”” of official statistics and their coherence with other official statistics.