Kevin
Brennan: We have had a very useful debate on this
important order. The hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood cited a famous
quote about statistics at the outset of his remarks. I have promised
the national statistician that that quote will never cross my lips, so
I am afraid that I will not be able to respond in kind to it. But for
readers of Hansard, it was in his first couple of sentences. I
have made that solemn promise, Mr. Amess, and I am not going
to breach it at my first opportunity here, on a public stage.
I welcome the
contributions from the hon. Members for Ruislip-Northwood and for
Richmond Park and my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth. I can assure
my hon. Friend that devolved Administrations will be able to grant
pre-release access only to statistics relating to devolved and not
shared responsibilities. In relation to pre-release access for
journalists, I agree with him and with the hon. Lady that it may be
appropriate, if there is any sign of abuse by a particular organisation
and an attempt to organise serial abuse of statistics by its
journalists, for that privilege to be withdrawn from the organisation,
and not just the individual. I can give that assurance.
I will not
respond too much to the political knockabout, except to say one thing,
which is that I do not remember the party of the hon. Member for
Ruislip-Northwood doing much about this issue when his father was on
the Front Bench. We are genuinely tightening up the official statistics
and I am glad that he welcomes that. The debate here is a bit of salami
slicing by the Opposition about the degree to which we should be
tightening the rules, rather than any fundamental objection to the idea
of pre-release access, or any fundamental objection to the path that we
are following. However, I understand the need for a nuanced argument to
be made by the Opposition.
Mr.
Hurd: Is it possible that we did not do anything about the
matter because the public were not so concerned about it because the
system was not being abused so
much?
Kevin
Brennan: Well, in the past couple of years, public trust
in statistics has improved as a result of the Government’s
actions. I have the statistics in front of me; I am not pre-releasing
them, they are on the public records. What the hon. Gentleman did not
tell us earlier was that since the 2005 report that he quoted from, ONS
public trust has improved significantly. We need to do more to improve
it. That is the purpose of the order and we all welcome that—it
is exactly why the Government have
acted. I
wish to address the points raised without detaining the Committee for
too long. International comparisons are made from time to time, but it
is clearly up to Parliament to decide our pre-release regime. The
principle of early release of data to Ministers is widely accepted
internationally. Many countries, including Australia, Germany, France,
Ireland, New Zealand and the USA, have some form of pre-release regime
in place. From time to time, a lot of nonsense is quoted about this.
The hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) had to correct himself when
he repeated what he was wrongly briefed on by the Royal Statistical
Society. He suggested that the US President got only half an
hour’s notice of economic statistics, when in reality he gets
them the day before. Some of the international comparisons quoted to us
sometimes require a little more examination before we move on
them. As
for whether 24 hours’ pre-release access is too long a period
and whether we listened to the consultation, of course the consultation
brought up different opinions, as any good consultation does. The
health statistics user group, for example, said
that “the
public also expects these same officials or ministers to be able to
talk intelligently about the
figures”— [Laughter.]
It may surprise some hon. Members, but they
do— “and
their implications, as soon as the figures are published. In order to
do this they need to be properly
briefed”. I
make the point that the 24 hours is for officials and Ministers. In
reality, Ministers get to see such statistics only after officials have
had a look at them, possibly tried to explain to Ministers what they
mean and put a note in their box. It is likely to be one minute to
midnight when Ministers look at the statistics, about a minute before
the end of the embargo we are talking about. Twenty-four hours is not
that lengthy a period of time, if considering when officials first see
the statistics, and when Ministers get their eyes on
them. Despite
what the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood said, there is very little
evidence to suggest that there is systemic abuse of the current
arrangements. I accept that there is a loss of public trust, and we
have been trying to improve that, but let us look at what the reports
are saying, including the 2004 Phillis review, which the hon. Gentleman
referred to. It found that there
was “no
evidence that this right has been
abused”. The
Statistics Commission made it clear that this number of breaches
is “an
extremely small percentage of the mass of statistical
releases”, going
on to say
that “where
breaches do occur, they are the result of accidental premature release
of data or lack of awareness of the Code by non-statisticians within a
department.” In
other words, if you will excuse me for saying this, Mr.
Amess, the cock-up theory prevails, rather than the conspiracy theories
that the Opposition and some parts of the media tend to
prefer. Parliament
decided that Ministers should be setting such rules. I understand that
the Opposition do not agree with that position, but that was the
decision—Ministers are best placed to judge how much pre-release
access is needed, and under which conditions, in order to be fully
informed and in a position to act, if required, in response to a
statistical release. I shall not say any more about the time
arrangements, which I have already referred to.
In
relation to whether the Government will use the powers we are talking
about with the consent of the Statistics Authority, the Government
proposal is to make additional provision for exceptional pre-release
access solely to allow for events that we are not able to predict at
this stage. All instances of such access would be notified to the
authority and published. I shall put this on the record: the Government
intend to use this power only in exceptional circumstances and
undertake to use it only with the consent of the authority. I hope that
that reassures the
Opposition. A
number of hon. Members raised the question of journalists. I wonder
what the Opposition and the media would have said had we said that
there would be no pre-release access for journalists. I suspect that
another conspiracy theory would have been born if we had shown an
unwillingness to share that information. The point, as I said, is that
pre-release access can improve public debate. The safeguard that we are
introducing is that we will publish the names of the journalists who
have that access, so that Opposition Members and other journalists and
media organisations, if they feel that something improper is going on,
can absolutely point the finger. That will prevent the kind of
cherry-picking that the hon. Member for Richmond Park was talking
about. The
hon. Lady mentioned the Opposition. There is a difference between the
role of the Opposition and the Government in relation to the release of
statistics. The Government have to account for statistics, while the
Opposition have to ask questions about them. As you know,
Mr. Amess, the greatest fool can ask more questions than the
wisest man can answer. The Opposition have a different role to that of
the Government, and in arguing that we should further widen pre-release
access, they seem to contradict the requests in every other part of
their remarks for me to tighten it more. In other words, they want
pre-release loosened only when it applies to them. As I said, there
will be transparency regarding the journalists.
One or two
other questions were raised about which people would be eligible to be
granted access in this order. Paragraph 3(2)(h) of the schedule clearly
includes policy makers or people who deliver services—for
example, chairmen of primary care trusts, charities and external
consultants. That will apply only where statistics are directly
relevant and at a national
level.
Mr.
Jenkins: I am sorry to take the Minister back to the point
about journalists, but we requested the answer to a specific question.
If a journalist breaches the rules, will the journalist or the
organisation be barred from pre-release access? We want the
organisation to be barred.
Kevin
Brennan: I think that the record will show that I did
refer to that in the earlier part of my remarks, but I will repeat it
for the benefit of the Committee. Where there is evidence of systematic
abuse from an organisation, it will be appropriate to consider
withdrawing the privilege of pre-release access from that organisation.
I hope that that assures my hon. Friend.
Mr.
Hurd: On a point of clarification, am I correct in
understanding that the new system will allow the Government to give
outside management consultants working with the Government pre-release
access to potentially sensitive
information?
Kevin
Brennan: It will be possible for eligible people to
include external consultants, but only where the statistics are
directly relevant and at a national level. I would like to make that
absolutely clear to the hon. Gentleman.
The hon.
Member for Ruislip-Northwood said that there had been no attempt to
define “significant,” and asked who decided what it
meant. In this instance, the relevant person is the statistical head of
profession, who must advise the national statistician and publish the
details and circumstances.
I was asked
whether the penalties for breach were too weak. I disagree with the
hon. Lady—the penalties for breach are strong. The hon.
Gentleman also raised this point. Under the Statistics and Registration
Service Act 2007, the Statistics Authority can remove
national statistics status from Departments if pre-release rules are
breached. Such a breach would be a serious matter. The head of
profession for statistics in a Department—who is chosen by the
permanent secretary in consultation with the national
statistician—would be able to remove future pre-release access
from anyone who knowingly breached the rules. Those strong and
practical penalties could be used. We have given heads of profession
discretion in wielding the big stick of removing pre-release access so
that they can manage the implementation of the rules as effectively as
possible.
Mr.
Hurd: On another point of clarification, can the Minister
explain exactly what role Ministers will have in influencing which
statistics are open to pre-release and to
whom?
Kevin
Brennan: It will not be the job of Ministers to influence
which statistics are open to pre-release. That should be decided on a
set of principles. The statistics head within each Department will look
at each individual case and decide whether or not pre-release access is
appropriate. It is not for Ministers to decide on such a
matter.
Mr.
Hurd: Are we to understand from that that Ministers will
not be consulted and will have no right of consultation and no
influence on the process?
Kevin
Brennan: It is not that Ministers will have no influence
on the process at all—the issue of the detail of particular
statistics will depend on whether a reply is required or expected. It
is appropriate for Ministers to be consulted, but ultimately the
decision should be taken on the basis of the principles that are set
out.
Susan
Kramer: On a point of clarity, the Minister said that
criteria would be set for whether there should be pre-release access to
a particular type of statistic. Will those criteria be published? Will
there be something that we can know about for each
Department?
Kevin
Brennan: I think that broad, general principles are
published. I am happy to write to the hon. Lady and
the other members of the Committee with the details of those principles
for clarification, if that is helpful. Of course, guidance will be
published as well, but I am happy to write to the hon. Lady after the
Committee with those general principles so that she has an opportunity
to peruse them.
The hon. Lady
asked me about the 12-month review and what it would include. It will
include an assessment of whether the pre-release rules remain
consistent with the broader objective of building trust in the
statistical system. The Cabinet Office will work with the UK Statistics
Authority to develop measures to assess how well the first year has
gone. For example, it will consider whether the number of statistics
with pre-release access has fallen, whether the number of people
receiving pre-release access has fallen, and what the impact has been
on officials who provide briefing to Ministers. I will undertake to
publish that review, so that the hon. Lady and other interested parties
can have sight of it.
Susan
Kramer: I thank the Minister for giving way. I anticipated
that he was just about to sit down. He has covered many of the
questions that have been raised in this debate, but I wonder whether he
might quickly address, or agree to write to us about, draft statistics,
because we did not cover that issue—the statutory instrument
covers final statistics only. Will he also address the issue of the
devolved Governments, and how pre-release access to common UK
statistics will be handled?
Kevin
Brennan: I think I am right in saying that where there are
common UK statistics, it will not be possible for Ministers or others
within the devolved Administrations to have sight of those before or on
any different basis or time scale to UK Ministers and Departments. I
hope that that answers the hon. Lady’s question. In relation to
how the rules will apply to published provisional figures or draft
figures, as she put it, the rules will apply. Statistics in their final
form include so-called provisional or draft figures; if they are being
published, the rules apply to them. I hope that that reassures her, and
on that basis I shall sit down.
5.12
pm
Mr.
Hurd: I thank the Minister for a thoroughly valiant
attempt to answer the question. He is quite right that in Opposition
there are more questions than answers, and that has proved to be the
case in this Committee. In all practicality, we have a 12-month review
to assess whether the Government are prepared to walk their talk. There
remain residual concerns that this rule-tightening process leaves
boundaries that are too broad and badly defined. However, on the basis
that we are going to be able to review real progress, rather than
rhetoric, in 12 months, I am prepared not to put the order to a
vote, not least because I do not think that I have the
firepower.
Question
put and agreed
to. Resolved,
That the
Committee has considered the draft Pre-release Access to Official
Statistics Order
2008. Committee
rose at thirteen minutes past Five
o’clock.
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