Examinatin of Witnesses (Questions 220-229)
LORD MOSER
KCB
14 JUNE 2006
Q220 Mr Todd: The consultation document
leaves slightly unclear whether the Treasury will continue to
have the overall responsibility for the Office for National Statistics.
Do you have a view as to whether the Treasury is the correct location
or whether another location in government is sensible?
Lord Moser: That is a very key
point. Point one, it is not conceivable that the system is totally,
so to speak, remote from Whitehall or from ministers. At the very
least, a minister has to answer in Parliament. So there has to
be the minister in the background. In the old days—and I
do not say in the good old days, because lots of things are much
better now than they were then—the reporting line was through
the Cabinet Office to the Prime Minister. This is a very real
link. I served three Prime Ministers. I would see the Prime Minister
quite regularly and he would take serious interest. That obviously
was a great strength, especially vis-a"-vis other departments.
So it was much less difficult to influence other ministries when
it was known that behind me was the Prime Minister. Those are
the days gone by, however. The only problem with the Treasury
as the home, and continuing home of ONS and so on, is nothing
subtle or mysterious; it is simply that there is a conflict of
interest. The Treasury has an overriding interest in economic
statistics—in all the economic statistics. Many of the most
important statistics relating to our society relate to things
like education, health and all the other social areas which are
not the direct interest of the Treasury. So I would still prefer
some route which links the operation more closely to the Cabinet
Office than to the Treasury. Whatever is done on that, however,
the important thing is that the code, which was referred to earlier,
has to be very powerful; the board has to be very powerful, because
what the public sees is the behaviour of the board and what is
in the code, and it is that which leads to trust.
Q221 Mr Todd: You gave us a brief
historical reflection without attributing the events to particular
individuals. From that, I take it that there were occasions when
you served in government when you felt that statistics were not
properly used by ministers. Does that suggest—together with
the remarks of Disraeli—that to some extent this subject
is nothing new, and we may be getting a little over-exercised
about some aspects of this, without taking a proper historical
reflection?
Lord Moser: I have heard the Disraeli
remark so often in my very long life! The point about statistics
is that it is a subject that many people are frightened of and
most people are uncomfortable with, but it is a very professional
subject. I was a professor of statistics, and we statisticians
live by integrity. Otherwise, we do not exist. The problem is
to ensure that that integrity comes through transparently to the
general public. There the problem is that sometimes the interest
of the actual figures and the interest of the ministers using
them are not the same. I will quote to you—because it was
not in my day but before my time—a Chancellor of the day
who wrote to my predecessor, Sir Harry Campion, on a paper which
gave the latest balance of payments figures. The Chancellor wrote
at the top—and this minute exists, by the way—"Director,
these figures are not compatible with my policies. Please recalculate"!
Obviously they were not recalculated and the Chancellor of the
day had the reply he deserved. But of course there is a temptation.
Politicians do a different job from the statisticians. The whole
strength of the Chancellor's initiative seems to me to be to find
ways of increasing the distance between the statisticians and
the politicians.
Q222 Mr Todd: So you accept that
this perfection of seeking accuracy and objectivity has to be
viewed through a prism of, to some extent, presentation and occasional
misuse, and that a bit of this lack of trust is an inevitable
part of governance. To conclude, you presumably would therefore
not be very sympathetic, based on what you have said, to the idea
of giving Opposition spokespeople equivalent access to a minister;
because that, from what you have said, may even make matters worse
rather than better.
Lord Moser: As long as my answer
is linked to my previous answer—and I have not really talked
about this—I will certainly propose, and I will say this
tomorrow in the Lords, that pre-release should basically be abolished.
Given that, I think the same applies to the Opposition. I see
no justification—and there is no other country that has
our system—for giving ministers or anybody the kind of pre-release
we have at the moment, which is over a day. I think perhaps something
over one hour, so that the minister can be prepared to answer
questions about the figures; but that would be the maximum in
my view—one hour pre-sight of any figures.
Q223 Mr Todd: With presumably some
exception on market-sensitive data perhaps?
Lord Moser: Personally, I would
leave it to the new board to decide whether there should be any
exceptions. My own view would be to start from no exceptions.
Q224 John Thurso: Lord Moser, various
witnesses have drawn to our attention the fragmented nature of
statistics across the United Kingdom as between the different
home nations. One said that it was not so much a consequence of
devolution but that devolution had brought this into focus. How
important do you believe it is that at the UK level there should
be a set of compatible statistics?
Lord Moser: I think that it is
absolutely vital. I do not know how to bring it about. Certainly
in my day and for many years it was not an issue. I am not sufficiently
clear about the legal position to say how this could be dealt
with in the proposed legislation, which is what it is all about
at the moment. I was head of the United Nations Statistics Division;
I was head of European things, and so on. We must have UK statistics.
The National Statistician and her staff will always try to ensure
compatibility with their friends and colleagues in Edinburgh,
et cetera. Should I have said Glasgow? No, I think that
I should have said Edinburgh.
Q225 John Thurso: You were right
with Edinburgh!
Lord Moser: Apart from that obvious
professional behaviour of sticking together, I do not know how
it can be done; but we must end up by having UK statistics.
Q226 Chairman: We have to leave it
there now, Lord Moser. Thank you very much indeed for attending
this afternoon and helping us.
Lord Moser: May I raise one other
issue for two minutes?
Q227 Chairman: Of course.
Lord Moser: I am quite concerned
how Parliament is intended to deal with this whole thing as a
final authority. Although it is rather an offensive line on which
to end, there is much more in the system than economic statistics.
If the Select Committees that deal with this are not the purely
economic committees in the Commons and the Lords, I think that
would not fit the rest of what we should have in mind. Some thought
has to be given on how Parliament actually deals with the wide
range of statistics, not just economic statistics.
Q228 Chairman: Thank you for that.
We certainly will address that when we come to report. At present,
the Treasury Committee is responsible because ONS is a Treasury
body.
Lord Moser: I understand that.
Q229 Chairman: So we do not just
have oversight over economic statistics; we look at the ONS and
the Statistics Commission as a whole. However, it is certainly
an aspect we will need to consider in our report.
Lord Moser: The issue is, when
there are important social policy issues which other committees
deal with, some way has to be found. I hope also that some way
will be found for the Lords to be involved in this whole process.
Chairman: Certainly. Lord Moser, thank
you very much.
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