 House of Commons |
Session 2006 - 07 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Statistics and Registration Service Bill |
Statistics and Registration Service Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Emily
Commander, Committee
Clerk
†
attended the Committee
Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 23 January 2007(Morning)[Mr. John Butterfill in the Chair]Statistics and Registration Service BillClause 10Code
of Practice for National
Statistics
10.30
am
Mr.
Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con): I beg to move amendment
No. 20, in
clause 10, page 5, line 15, at
end insert—
‘(3B) The Code
shall include rules and principles relating to the release of official
statistics,
including—
(a) the
location from which the release shall be
made;
(b) the person or persons
responsible for issuing the release;
and
(c) the period of time
before which department or ministerial comment is not to be
permitted.’.
No. 92, in
clause 10, page 5, line 15, at
end insert—
‘(4) The Code
shall include rules and principles relating to the granting of
pre-release access to official
statistics.
(5) The Board may,
for the purposes of the Code, lay down rules and principles relating to
the release of official statistics including specifying, inter
alia—
(a) the location
from which the release shall be
made;
(b) the persons
responsible for issuing the release;
and
(c) a period, following
release, during which time no departmental or ministerial comment is
permitted in relation to the
release.’.
No.
85, in
clause 11, page 6, line 9, at
end insert—
‘(9) The Board
may, for the purposes of the Code, lay down rules and principles
relating to the release of official statistics including, inter
alia—
(a) the location
from which the release shall be
made;
(b) the persons
responsible for issuing the release;
and
(c) the time period before
which departmental and ministerial comment is not
permitted.’.
I
emphasise that amendment No. 20 deals with the release of official
statistics, not their pre-release. It is about run-of-the-mill
statistics, not national
statistics.
The
Chairman:
Order. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for
that introduction, as we will come to pre-release statistics in clause
11.
Mr.
Fallon:
Thank you, Sir John. The rules would apply to
people issuing statistics and a Minister commenting on the statistics
and it is the view of those
in the statistical community outside this House thatthe rules
need to be codified and clarified. This amendment and amendment No. 85
have the support of the Society of Business Economists.
The rules and principles are
matters for the board to decide in detail, but we are perfectly
entitled to suggest in the Bill at least some of the areas that the
board should include when it decides that detail. By tabling the
amendment, I am simply suggesting some of the matters that should be
included. It is unlike the Minister’s drafting of clause 8,
which prescribed exactly, and only, what the board’s areas of
concern should be. The amendment states only that among the things that
it must decide in detail it would be useful to include the location of
the release, the issuer of the release and the time period for
commentary on it. I shall consider each of those in
turn.
Location is
fairly obvious. Most official statistics will be released by the
Departments and some will be released by the board, but it should be
for the board to decide the location of the release.
As for the manner of the
release, the Treasury Committee was concerned about that point.
Paragraph 145 of the report
states:
“Finally,
in the interests of improving public confidence in official statistics,
we recommend that the independent statistics office release alongside
National Statistics its own considered and non-partisan
interpretation.”
In
other words, it would not simply be left to the Minister, his advisers
or his press officers; therewould be an independent commentary
from the new independent board itself. That is extremely
important.
It is also
important that there would then be an interval before
politicians—the Minister, his advisers or the press
officers—get involved, so that for a period of perhaps two or
three hours the public could see the virgin statistics presented with
an independent, non-partisan commentary alongside them. It would later
be open to the Department, the Minister or his advisers, to add any
top-spin if they wanted to do so. The board must decide on those three
important matters when it draws up its code. The amendment does not
tell the board precisely how to do that; it merely states that these
are three matters at least which the code oughtto
cover.
Dr.
Vincent Cable (Twickenham) (LD): I wish to speak in
support of this amendment and also amendment No. 85, which is part of
the same group, under the name of myself and my hon. Friend. It is a
little confusing, as my amendment relates to clause 11 but it is
subsumed within the group because issues of release and pre-release do
come together when we are considering where the authority
lies.
The
Chairman:
Order. We are aware of that and, of
course, grouping amendment No. 92 here also deals with both release and
pre-release. We thought it might be simpler for hon. Members to confine
this present area of debate to release and then deal with the
pre-release issues when we come to clause 11, which specifically deals
with pre-release. I hope that that is
helpful.
Dr.
Cable:
Yes, indeed, it is very helpful. Thank you. The
central point which unifies the debates about release and pre-release
is where the authority should lie for setting the rules. The point that
we are trying to make in our amendment—the hon. Member for
Sevenoaks made precisely the same point—is that the rules
governing both release and pre-release should be set by the board in
the interests of statistical integrity. It is the details of those
processes that determine the integrity of the system. They should not
be set by the Minister operating through secondary legislation. That is
the essential point about this.
I simply want to reiterate what
the hon. Member for Sevenoaks has just said. The rules regarding
release cover several different aspects, one of the most important of
which is location. There is a very strong view in the statistical
community that the rules governing location should provide for a split
between the two functions of announcing the results of statistical work
and commenting on them. The best way of preserving that distinction in
the release process is physically to separate them. In order to
preserve the integrity of the process, it should be the board, rather
than Ministers directly acting through regulation, which determines how
that is done.
It is
not simply a question of getting it right in relation to location, the
number of people, or the timing, but also of embedding in legislation a
clear mandate for the board to set the rules under which release as
well as pre-release takes place.
Mrs.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con): I, too, would
like to speak in support of amendment No. 92 and amendment No. 20,
tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks, which is more or
less completely included in amendment No. 92.
Following the guidance of the
Chairman, I will not address pre-release, although amendment No. 92
does contain a very important provision that pre-release should be a
matter for the board, which I will come to in the next set of
amendments. It is valuable to have an opportunity to discuss release
practices separately from the rather higher- profile and more
controversial issue of pre-release. It tends to be overshadowed by
pre-release as an issue, but actually it is probably as important if
not more important in getting the structure of the Bill right. The
approach taken by the Chairman is very useful for the Committee as it
considers important issues in the Bill.
Not only are release rules
important in relation to the trust that we are trying to rebuild with
this Bill but clear and well-enforced rules on release of statistics
are an essential part of a strategy for economic stability. The release
of key economic indicators, such as the inflation or unemployment
rates, can have dramatic effects on financial markets. Providing for
orderly and controlled release of such figures is vital to prevent
unnecessary market volatility. If we are to retain a flourishing City
of London, it is vital that rules on release of statistics are properly
enforced and complied
with.
The
Minister’s announcement on Second Reading that there would be a
move to a single hub for the release of statistics was welcome. I
understand that that approach has already been adopted successfully in
Wales. I acknowledge that the Minister has moved on a number of issues
during the consultation, and this further response to the concerns
raised by the statistical community is welcome. However, I look forward
to hearing further details about his plans, and I have a number of
questions for him.
Done right, I think that the
idea of a central statistical hub could do much to mitigate what the
Royal Statistical Society described as
“an impossible tension at the
heart of the release
process”.
Opposition
Members have already adverted to some of those problems. Political
control over the release of statistics is responsible for some of the
most significant spin problems that the Bill should be tackling. We
believe that the perception, and very often the reality, of the spin
placed on figures by Ministers at the time of release is a significant
factor in undermining public trust in official
figures.
Mrs.
Villiers:
I was going to come on to one, but briefly, I
was concerned about the decision of the Department for Education and
Skills to issue GCSE figures, which were good, on the same day as
keystage 1 and 2 figures, which were poor. The Statistics
Commission concluded that policy advisers had put pressure on the
statisticians to release the figures on the same day in order to divert
attention from the poor
ones.
Alun
Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op): I
recognise her concerns, although from my experience a lot of this seems
to be made up by the media. Does the hon. Lady agree that there is
equal concern about the way in which figures are picked up by the
media? Very often, they are misinterpreted because not enough
information is provided about the context of the
figures.
Mrs.
Villiers:
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his
intervention. There is concern about the way in which the media deal
with figures and statistics. That is certainly true. But political
interference is the greater concern, and the Bill should focus on
that.
Alun
Michael:
Does the hon. Lady agree that the media regularly
whip up concerns, often in collusion with Opposition parties, and that
the Bill needs to provide clinical precision on the way in which
figures are dealt with in order to remove those concerns as well as
those that she is expressing about Government
interference?
Mrs.
Villiers:
I do not agree that there is a problem with the
press whipping up concern about political interference in statistics.
For example, on the problem with the GCSE results, it was not tabloid
journalists who intervened or expressed concerns but the Statistics
Commission—the very body set up by the Government to deal with
such problems.
Rob
Marris:
The hon. Lady gave one example, not two. However,
I caution her. These matters are delicate, as she pointed out. Had
those statistics been released separately, allegations might well have
been made in the press that the Government were sitting on poor key
stage 1 and 2
statistics.
Mrs.
Villiers:
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point—we
do not want the Government sitting on figures for a sustained period.
The commission recommended that there be a set date every year for the
release of particular statistics in order to deal with his concerns and
to ensure that statistics were released in an orderly fashion and that
the public could look at them individually, rather than having the news
on some displaced by the news on
others.
The problem is
that the first person to issue the news and analysis of a certain set
of statistics has significant power to influence how the figures are
understood. If the reforms in the Bill are to be successful, they will
have to put in place measures to prevent that power from being abused
for political ends. The Opposition believe that that can be achieved
only if we allow the board to set the rules on how Government
statistics are released to the public. We have received many
representations from organisations such as the Royal Statistical
Society and the Society of Business Economists on the importance of
that approach. For the RSS and its president, Tim Holt, it is one of
the most important components of a successful reform of statistical
services.
10.45
am
The British
Society for Population Studies has expressed the concern:
“Ministers continue to
decide what National Statistics will cover, decide who will have access
to National Statistics before their release...and then release
those statistics through their departmental Press Offices, often
accompanied by their own press releases. This has been a key reason why
the description of roles set out in the Framework has not achieved the
desired improvements in public
confidence.”
They are
referring there, of course, to the 2000 framework.
Some of the difficulties that
can arise have been illustrated by the reference to the problems
regarding the publication of GCSE results. Essentially, positive GCSE
figures were deliberately released on the same day as poor key stage 1
and 2 results, which showed a decline in reading standards, in order to
distract attention from those poor results. In the view of the
Statistics Commission, there was concern that policy advisers had
deliberately intervened to bring the release days together, precisely
to distract attention from the bad
news.
Leaving aside
cases such as that, where there seems to have been deliberate political
manipulation, even in cases where those who are issuing the release try
to be impartial, there is a tension when they are responsible for both
explaining what the numbers mean and justifying the policy and
performance of their Department. A key problem that has been brought to
my attention is that it is not always the departmental statisticians
who are in charge of the content of the release and the release
process—often it is the policy advisers who take control. Bill
McLennan put that problem as follows:
“The
reality of statistical life outside the ONS...is that with all
statistical releases from...departments, statisticians do play a
part, but so do bureaucrats, economists, ministerial advisers and even
ministers. In general, it is not the statisticians who decide what is
released, when it is released or how it is released, although they may
give some advice. The bottom line is that the final decisions lie with
the Minister. In fact, all national statistics that are not released by
the ONS are ministerial releases. I’d be very surprised that
when push comes to shove if political expediency doesn’t always
take precedence over
objectivity”.
Now,
Mr. McLennan had a very cynical view of how politicians
operate, but it is worth emphasising that such a state of affairs
contributes to a lack of trust in the process.
It is also worth recognising
that we have a problem that seems to relate to departmental statistics
and not really to the Office for National Statistics. As I understand
it, there are strict procedures for the release of ONS statistics,
particularly in relation to sensitive economic matters. There is an
argument for extending the ONS model and procedures to the release of
other important statistics from
Departments.
I have
some questions for the Minister. The most important of all is this:
will the board have the authority to set the rules on how national
statistics are released? The views of the Minister on pre-release are
clear—he does not believe that the board should set those
rules—but does he accept that other rules relating to release
should be set by the board? Also, would he have any objection to the
code of conduct covering release practices, and does he envisage it
doing so?
Regarding
his proposal for a new statistical hub for the centralised release of
official statistics away from Departments, who will manage that new
central press office? Will it be the board, and will the cost of
managing it come out of the board’s budget? Will this central
hub cover only national statistics, or will the board have the choice
of including other official statistics and the power to require that
they are also released through the central statistical hub? Will any
statistics other than national statistics be released through that
central hub?
It is
important, as hon. Friends have said, that the new hub is physically
separate from the Departments to try to mitigate some of the problems
that we have heard about. That separation seems to be more or less
implied by the Minister’s statement on Second Reading, but
perhaps he could confirm that. Does he envisage the hub being located
on ONS premises? Does the closure of the London headquarters of the ONS
have any impact on that? Those operational questions may be too
detailed, but if the Minister can give us an indication of how he sees
the system operating, that would be of some reassurance to the
statistical community.
A key issue is who will be in
charge of issuing the release. Will it be the statisticians in the ONS
or will those who prepared the statistics in the individual Departments
come to the new central hub to issue the release? Will policy advisers
take part in preparing and issuing the release or will the board be
able to determine who is involved? Again, if the board wereto
have control over the process, that would do much to mitigate the
concerns that we have heard about spin.
Will the board be able to set
rules to prevent ministerial comment for a certain period after the
release, as advocated in the amendments? If the board
can produce its own interpretation of the numbers before the Department
gives its justification for the policies that underlie them, that could
contribute significantly to securing the impartiality and integrity of
Government statistics. Even a fairly short period would do much to
separate the analysis and presentation of what the numbers mean from
the ministerial justification for the policy. That would do much to
restore the trust in statistics that the Government seek to achieve
through their reforms.
Mr.
Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con): It was my intention to
address amendment No. 92 to clause 10(4), but with your indulgence, Sir
John, I shall address the issue of pre-release, as per your guidance,
in the debate that follows.
The
Chairman:
That is most helpful. Amendment No. 92 relates
to clause 10, but also to the issue of pre-release, which arises in
another clause. I did not want to prevent debate on the second aspect
of the amendment, but it is perfectly appropriate for the hon.
Gentleman to deal with it in the debate on clause
11.
The
Financial Secretary to the Treasury (John Healey):
May I
welcome you back to the Chair,Sir John, and hon. Members back
to the Committee? This group of amendments deals with release
arrangements and, as you helpfully said in your guidance, with
pre-release. That is also dealt with in the next group of amendments,
which relate to clause 11.
I turn first to the subject of
release practices. Under clause 10, the board already has the ability
to prepare, adopt and publish a code of practice. That code may well
include guidance on all aspects of release practices, except
pre-release access, for which clause 11 proposes special arrangements,
and we shall discuss those in due course.
I am glad that the hon. Member
for Chipping Barnet recognises the importance of the orderly release of
statistical data to financial markets and the City of London, and that
is why the current code covers the handling of release practices. That
should lead her, as it does me, fully to expect the board to include
similar rules and guidance on release practices in the new code. I hope
that that clear statement is sufficient to reassure the hon. Member for
Twickenham, too.
It
is precisely to separate policy commentary from statistical releases
and to remove the perception of political interference in releases that
the Government are committed to the principle of a central publications
hub. I therefore suggest that amendments Nos. 85 and 20 are
unnecessary. Nothing in the Bill prevents the board from laying down
principles and guidance relating to the location of releases, the
persons responsible for issuing releases or the timing of releases;
indeed, as I said, I would expect it to do so.
On the matter of the location
and the person responsible for issuing statistical releases, the
principle of the hub is important, as I outlined on Second Reading. The
hon. Lady asked me a series of detailed operational questions, and we
are continuing to work on the new arrangements. I will report to the
House when I can appropriately. We will examine the questions she posed
this afternoon.
An additional feature when
considering the principle of setting up a central publications hub is
how to accommodate the particular circumstances of the devolved
Administrations. The hon. Lady mentioned the arrangements in Wales. The
devolved Administrations will retain responsibility for wholly devolved
statistics. However, when I am in a position to confirm arrangements
for such a central publications hub and when it will become
operational, I hope that some of the concerns expressed in the
amendments today and by commentators can be
settled.
More
generally, as I have already argued on earlier amendments, the
intention, which I believe that the Bill captures, is for the content
of the statistics board’s code not to be prescribed in
legislation but to be left to the determination of the independent
statistics board, with the exception of pre-release and of data
sharing, which we will come to presently. Specifically, the hon. Member
for Sevenoaks argued in amendment No. 20 that the code should include
rules and articles relating to the release of official statistics,
including details about the location of release, the person responsible
and the period of time after publication during which departmental or
ministerial comment is not permitted. Quite apart from the amendment
resulting in a farcical situation, where the press and Opposition would
be free to comment on releases while the Department and the Ministers
responsible for their preparation and for the policy were not, I cannot
accept the amendment. I believe that the content of the code should be
left tothe independent statistics board. As I said, I expect
the board to follow through on many of the features of the current code
of practice and to cover the concerns of the hon. Gentleman. The board
will certainly have ample scope under the Bill to do
so.
Amendment No. 85
makes a similar pitch to amendment No. 20. On the basis of my
explanation of the Bill and of the Government commitment I
gaveon Second Reading to the principle of a central
publications hub, which should settle many of the concerns behind the
amendments, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not press his
amendment.
Mrs.
Villiers:
I should like to respond briefly before my hon.
Friend the Member for Sevenoaks returns to his amendment. I welcome the
Minister’s statement that the new code will be expected to cover
release practices. I regret that exceptions still make the pre-release
book, but we will come to that. I recognise that some of my questions
blend into operational matters, on which the Minister can obviously not
give a detailed response today, but not all do.
I would briefly like to put two
key questions to the Minister again. Will the board call the shots on
how the new central publications office is run? Will the board decide
which statistics have to be released and which do not through the
central publications hub? Will the central publications hub cover
statistics outside the national statistics system or will it be
confined just to national statistics? In closing, I would hope that the
Committee will be prepared to vote on amendment No.
92.
John
Healey:
The hon. Lady asked me again at least two direct
questions. Let me give direct answers. The principle of the central
publications hub, which the
Government are committed to setting up, would be to
ensure that all national statistics were published through that hub.
Secondly, I would expect the board to have ultimate responsibility for
the operation of a central publications hub, although I am not in a
position to confirm that because, as I have explained, we are still
working on the details, many of which have yet to be determined. As I
have explained, beyond national statistics, the board, through the
code, is free and has the scope—indeed we have the code
already—to set standards and procedures for the release of wider
official statistics.
I hope that is clear, direct
and, as far as I can give at this point, an answer to the hon.
Lady’s questions. If the Opposition press the amendment, we will
have to ask my hon. Friends to resist
it.
11
am
Mr.
Fallon:
I am slightly disappointed by the
Minister’s reply and I am a bit puzzled. He is arguing two
things simultaneously. He is saying that the code can include all these
various things and that, although it is up to the board, it will
probably get around to doing them. At the same time, he has told the
Committee that the principle of a central publications hub is important
and that it is something that the Government is going to do. He cannot
have it both ways. He cannot say these are matters for the board to get
around to and that they probably will and then, on the other hand, say
there is one really important thing that the Government are going to
do. That is
illogical.
John
Healey:
Has the hon. Gentleman not just argued, and is not
the amendment designed to ensure, that a central publications hub will
be an essential feature of the architecture of the new system? If
itis, I would have thought he would welcome our commitment,
which is entirely consistent with a belief that the board should draw
up independently the code of practice covering the range of matters set
out in the Bill.
Mr.
Fallon:
I hope that we are not misunderstanding each
other. If the Minister is saying that the principle of a central
publications hub is vital, I do not understand why he is not prepared
to ensure that the code will include the things that I have
discussed.
Obviously
the Committee does not have the full details of how the central
publications hub will operate, but we know two things. First, the
Government are going to set it up, as the Minister explained. It will
not be done by the board or the existing ONS. Secondly, the Minister
conceded that it was likely that the new board would have
responsibility for operating the hub. That is not quite the same as
ownership. It is not the same as saying that the hub will belong to the
board and that it will be totally responsible for it. So it looks as if
the board will be managing the day-to-day operations of the central
publications hub on behalf of the Government who have set it
up.
I am still
slightly puzzled as to why the Minister wants to reject the amendment.
Perhaps we are simply debating the difference between
“may” and “shall”. Given that this code is
not enforceable, a weakness to which the Opposition have constantly
drawn attention,
I think it is useful to put into statute the key areas that Parliament
wants the code to cover. That is why I tabled amendment No. 20 and that
is why I think it would be useful to have something along its lines in
the Bill. However, having looked carefully at the drafting of amendment
No. 92, I think that it would be preferable because it is slightly more
comprehensive. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Amendment
proposed: No. 92, in clause 10, page 5, line 15, at end
insert—
‘(4) The Code shall
include rules and principles relating to the granting of pre-release
access to official
statistics.
(5) The Board may,
for the purposes of the Code, lay down rules and principles relating to
the release of official statistics including specifying, inter
alia—
(a) the location
from which the release shall be
made;
(b) the persons
responsible for issuing the release;
and
(c) a period, following
release, during which time no departmental or ministerial comment is
permitted in relation to the
release.’.—[Mrs.
Villiers.]
Question
put, That the amendment be
made:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes
9.
Division
No.
9
]
AYESNOES
Question
accordingly negatived.
Question proposed, That
the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mrs.
Villiers:
Of course there is welcome agreement
across the Committee that the code’s content should be a matter
for the board. However, we are considering one or two things that
relate to its content, and in order to strengthen the new code, we
should learn lessons from the current non-statutory code.
The Statistics Commission has
expressed concern that there are ambiguities in the current code which
have made it difficult to enforce. We touched on that when we discussed
my amendment to require authorities to look to the board for
interpretation of the code, and I need not go over that again. However,
according to the commission, the fact that much of the current code is
non-prescriptive makes it difficult to make an independent judgment on
compliance. It seems from its experience that the commission needs
something shorter, simpler and more imperative in style.
It would be useful to know how
the Minister thinks that the new code of practice will interact in this
context with the civil service code. It is important that
efforts are made to ensure that the two can be reconciled and operate
rationally alongside one another.
I re-emphasise that in drafting
the code it is important for the board to look to the international
treaties to which the UK is subject to learn lessons and to draw useful
examples from the codes produced by the European Union and the United
Nations.
John
Healey:
I thank the hon. Lady for saying that the content
of the code should be a matter for the board. That is why the
provisions on the code are non-prescriptive, as she rightly
observed.
The hon.
Lady mentioned the Statistics Commission and its observations and
reservations about aspects of the current code. She is right. The
Statistics Commission is doing valuable work in preparation for the new
system. It is developing a serious and substantive new code of practice
and consulting a range of interests about it. When the statistics board
is appointed and up and running it will find it useful to draw on that
work.
We debated the
code and the provisions of the code that the statistics board is likely
to produce. I have confirmed that the board is likely to draw on, and
will be aware of, relevant codes in the European Union and the United
Nations. It will also take into account any interaction with the civil
service code, as the hon. Lady suggests. On that basis, I hope that she
is prepared to give a fair wind to the
clause.
Question
put and agreed
to.
Clause 10
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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