Statistics and Registration Service Bill

Public Bill Committee, 23 January 2007.

Clause 10

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

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.’.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

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.’.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

Good morning, Sir John, and welcome back to the Committee.

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.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that introduction, as we will come to pre-release statistics in clause 11.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

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.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

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.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

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.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

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.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

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.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Will the hon. Lady give a couple of examples?

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

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 (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

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.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

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 (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

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?

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

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 (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

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.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

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.

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.

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

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.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

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.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

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.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

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 (Labour, Wentworth)

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.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

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 (Labour, Wentworth)

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.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

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.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

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 (Labour, Wentworth)

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.

Clause 11

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I beg to move amendment No. 21, in clause 11, page 5, line 17, leave out ‘may not’ and insert ‘shall’.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 22, in clause 11, page 5, line 19, leave out ‘appropriate authority’ and insert ‘Board’.

No. 82, in clause 11, page 5, line 22, leave out subsection (3).

No. 83, in clause 11, page 5, line 31, leave out ‘, or maximum period’.

No. 84, in clause 11, page 5, line 32, after ‘granted’, insert

‘up to a maximum of two hours before general release’.

No. 23, in clause 11, page 5, line 38, leave out subsection (6).

No. 43, in clause 11, page 5, line 38, leave out subsections (6) and (7).

No. 24, in clause 11, page 6, line 6, leave out ‘appropriate authority’ and insert ‘Board’.

No. 25, in clause 11, page 6, line 7, leave out from ‘consult’ to end of line and insert—

‘(a) the Treasury, except in a case under the provisions of paragraphs (b) to (d);

(b) the Scottish Ministers, in relation to official statistics that are wholly Scottish devolved statistics;

(c) the Welsh Ministers, in relation to official statistics that are wholly Welsh devolved statistics;

(d) the Department of Finance and Personnel for Northern Ireland, in relation to official statistics that are wholly Northern Ireland devolved statistics.’.

No. 26, in clause 16, page 7, line 34, after ‘publish’, insert ‘(1)’.

No. 27, in clause 16, page 7, line 36, at end insert

‘; and

(2) a list of all persons granted pre-release access under the provisions of section 11.’.

No. 86, in clause 17, page 8, line 9, leave out subsection (4).

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

Under your expert guidance, Sir John, we come to the issue of pre-release. The thrust of amendment No. 21 and consequential amendments Nos. 22 to 25 is that, as has been stated so often, pre-release should be a matter for the board ratherthan for Ministers. I am not alone—it is almost universal—in my belief that the provisions on pre-release are the biggest single mistake in the entire Bill. The amendments give us an opportunity to put it right and put the independence of statistics beyond all doubt.

It will be for the Minister to explain why he believes Ministers should keep control over the arrangements for pre-release. The Government have adopted an extraordinary position: in essence, they are saying that Ministers should decide how Ministers should behave. I do not know whether you are a cricketer, Sir John, but that is like giving batsmen the ability to decide whether the leg before wicket rule should apply to them. It is wrong in principle and wrong in practice.

The practice of pre-release has grown to a large extent. When the Treasury Committee considered it, we rapidly came to the conclusion that it was far too extensive and involved too many people. Amendments Nos. 26 and 27 would oblige the board to publish a list of people granted pre-release access. At the moment, it is necessary to trawl various websites to establish exactly who is entitled to pre-release access to each statistical series. I would start the other way around: if pre-release is to exist at all, it ought to be a privilege. The board should therefore be obliged to maintain a register of persons entitled to it.

Who is entitled to pre-release access? It might interest you, Sir John, to know how extensive the practice is. To take relatively humdrum statistics such as the series on weekly deaths in England and Wales,14 named civil servants get two and a half days’ advance notice of how many people have died. Three of those 14 are in the Health Protection Agency. One might think that it is a little late to inform the HPA of deaths in the previous week.

A series of statistics of more obvious economic importance are those on the labour market. Of course, they were the statistics famously abused by the Prime Minister in his speech to the TUC annual congress this year—he leaked them two days before they were due to be released and then sent the Cabinet Secretary, of all people, to apologise. How many people would the Committee estimate have pre-release access to the labour market statistics? There are 18 people in six Departments who get more than two days’ notice of them and a further 22 in nine Departments who get pre-release access “through the press office”.

In other words, 40 named officials have two days’ advance notice of the likely unemployment figures. One might well ask, “Why?” The list of those entitled to that information of course includes important figures such as the Governor of the Bank of England and the Chancellor. There might be a case for arguing that the Governor should have two days’ advance notice of the unemployment figures. However, the last two officials on the list of those 40 people are referred to as “Treasury official clearing brief” and “Treasury official preparing brief”. Do 40 people, including Treasury officials preparing a brief, really need two days’ notice of the unemployment statistics? I think not.

Let us turn to the consumer price index—the key index of inflation on which the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee has to base its judgment, and which was the cause of some excitement last week when inflation edged 3 per cent., which was very close to the target range. Some 12 people have advance access to the consumer price index, “through the press office”—11 in the Treasury have two days’ notice of the inflation figure and one hapless official in the Department of Trade and Industry gets one day’s notice. The Committee might be surprised to learn that a further 12 officials have access to the CPI, including a Mr. Gareth Jones from the States of Guernsey policy and research unit and a Ms Hayley Harris from Customs and Excise who gets the figures in advance only in February. All 12 officials seem to get differing amounts of notice.

That is a mess. It is an abuse, and it has spread far too widely. There is no justification for 12, 20 or 40 different officials having far more advance notice than everyone else of what the figures are going to be. Nobody in Parliament gets that degree of notice, so we need to clean things up. I have not argued, and neither did the Treasury Committee in its report, that there is no case whatever for pre-release. There might well be a case for some very senior officers of the state, such as the Governor of the Bank of England or the Chancellor, having access to information as early as it is available—a day or two before publication. However, 40 people should certainly not have two days’ advance notice, and certainly not Treasury officials in charge of briefing.

When the Treasury Committee looked at that matter, it concluded that pre-release was far too extensive and needed to be cut back. Our recommendation was three hours. It is worth pointing out that the Committeewas Labour-dominated and included six former Ministers—people who had experience of pre-release and who saw no case for the extension. Furthermore, the Minister himself accepted that the practice had got out of hand. He gave evidence to the Committee on14 June and said, in answer to question 287:

“First of all, I would certainly accept that the pre-release arrangements contribute to the perception of interference in statistics.”

To be fair to him, he went on to argue that there had been very few proven cases of abuse, but then said:

“Nevertheless, there is a perception there.”

If there is a perception that the independence of statistics is threatened by the extent of the pre-release arrangements, we should take the first opportunity in the Bill to put the independence of statistics beyond all doubt. I cannot understand the point of setting up a new independent board but then saying that only Ministers should continue to be allowed to regulate the arrangements that apply to themselves, albeit with the approval of Parliament, and that that is the one matter with which the board should not deal. That is wrong in practice, as I think I have demonstrated, and certainly wrong in principle.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

I wish to speak in support of the amendment. Other amendments in the group relate to the issue—including those that stand in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne—particularly amendment No. 82, which would specify a time period for pre-release, in line with what we believe to be good international practice. Amendments Nos. 43 and 86 give effect to the proposal that we should clearly specify a non-political process for the determination of pre-release.

I wish to focus on the time period and on why it is seriously bad practice for the UK to have long periods of pre-release. There are several reasons for that, the first of which is that the longer the period of pre-release, the greater the opportunity for political mischief, through spinning and interpreting the data. I mean “political” in the broadest sense—I am not talking just about Ministers, but about advisers and press officers. That could also include civil servants, who might not act in a political capacity but who might feel that a set of statistics puts their Department in a particularly bad or good light, and will want to emphasise certain elements, given the opportunity to do so. We have seen many examples of that happening with social statistics.

Secondly, even if the practice that I have described was exaggerated—it is possible that we exaggerate what goes on—there is none the less the issue of public perception. We discussed at considerable length on Second Reading the figures showing poor public perception of Government statistics. The pre-release process has helped to forge those negative political perceptions.

A third reason is that the longer the figures are out there, the greater the likelihood that they will be leaked inadvertently, with damaging consequences. There have been some examples of that; for instance, in 2003 somebody leaked the retail sales statistics. They are a key market-moving indicator, but they got out in a way that they should not have.

The Government’s argument is that there is a case for pre-release, which we concede in the amendment. We do not take the extreme fundamentalist view that there should not be pre-release, although some countries do take that hard line. I understand that the Nordic countries have no pre-release at all. Norway, Finland and Denmark have no pre-release, and neither does Austria. However, we concede the principle thatthere is a justification for pre-release under certain circumstances, which are quite clear. There are some important economic statistics that move markets, whether it be the bond market or foreign exchange markets. The shift in numbers might be such that action by Government is required to deal with it. If the Government have not been given at least some opportunity to take action, market movement will be considerably influenced by the release. There is therefore a need for a certain time period, in order to prepare action. Many developed countries accept that principle, which is also accepted in the amendment.

However, it is worth reviewing what most other developed countries actually do, which is quite different and much less permissive than what occurs in our country. I shall just go through some of the key examples. Australia, for example, has a three-hour period, which is a little more generous than this amendment allows for, but of the same order of magnitude; I think that the Select Committee suggested a figure of three hours. Crucially, that three-hour pre-release provision applies to only a handful of key economic statistics—it does not apply at all to social data. France has a period of only one hour, which is again restricted to key economic data, unemployment, trade and inflation figures. Ireland gives a period of one hour for the most important economic statistics and two hours for national accounts, with no pre-release for anything else.

One would have thought that the United States was at the frontier of good practice because its statistics affect the world, not just the US. As I understand American practice, the President has pre-release access of only 30 minutes for key economic statistics. We have not got around to this topic at all in the Bill, but the Americans hve not only release and pre-release rules, but post-release rules. Civil servants are not allowed to comment on the data for at least an hour after they have been released. The American practice is very severe, disciplined and restrictive in terms of both the amount of pre-releases allowed and the statistics that are pre-released. If we are to adopt good international practice, we should be aspiring to something much closer to the American model.

Finally, by way of contrast, I cite Canada because its position is much closer to what the Government aspire to. The Canadians allow 15 hours for Ministers and18 hours for civil servants. Essentially, they pre-release data at the end of the afternoon, the day before they are due to be published. Ministers and civil servants get a night to reflect on the data and react to it, but crucially again, that is allowed for only a handful of key economic statistics, and does not apply to social data.

We can have an abstract argument about the pros and cons of pre-releasing data, but the question the Government have to answer is why British practice, even as modified under the Bill, is so far out of line with that in the rest of the developed world, and in a way that perpetuates either bad practice or the public perception of it. This is a key clause in the Bill and I hope that the Minister is listening to the criticisms that are coming from those on the Opposition Benches and the profession, and I hope that he will respond sympathetically to the amendments.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

The Opposition believe that it would significantly strengthen the proposed reforms if the board were given the power to decide the rules on ministerial pre-release access to statistical information prior to publication. That is why we tabled amendment No. 92, which the Committee just had the opportunity to vote on, to put pre-release into the code of practice. That is also why we support amendment No. 21 and why we will be voting against clause 11 when we get the opportunity to do so.

If the Government genuinely wish to devolve power over statistics, as they claim, and make a genuine step towards “modern economic governance”, they should not exclude pre-release rules from the devolution proposed. In theory, under the logic of the scheme expected in the Bill, one would expect pre-release rules, at least in relation to national statistics, to be included in the code of practice and thus to be determined by the new reformed structures that the Bill will set up.

The Government’s decision to put pre-release into legislation, by making a specific exception to the principle that the board decides how national statistics are dealt with, significantly undermines the credibility of the reforms they propose. It seems to us that there is nothing inherent in pre-release rules that makes them qualitatively different from other rules governing the treatment of statistics. Not only should the board have the power to decide the rules, but I hope that it would choose to exercise that power to restrict the current scope of pre-release access. Like many others who expressed a view during the consultation process, we believe that the time has come to tighten the rules on pre-release.

Pre-release should be restricted by limiting the range of statistics to which it applies, reducing the number of people who are granted access and by shortening of the period of access.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

How long does the hon. Lady think that the pre-release access period should be?

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

As a provisional view, I believe that fundamentally the board should decide. There is a case, however, for allowing Ministers four hours advance notice of data that are not market-sensitive. That is a little more than the Treasury Committee suggested, but it is still a significant tightening of the rules. In the case of market-sensitive data, and drawing on the conclusions of the Treasury Committee, I think that there is a case for allowing Ministers access after the markets close on the day before release at 9.30 the next morning. I stress that those are provisional views. The board should decide: taking into account all the relevant factors and bringing its expertise to bear, it should make an impartial decision. There is a case for pre-release access, but it should be more restricted than under the current rules. Retaining limited pre-release access for Ministers could be useful in relation to the points made by the Minister on Second Reading, in providing for emergency measures that need to be taken in relation to sensitive statistics and allowing Ministers to prepare a response to them.

That is my provisional view of the minimum justifiable duration of pre-release access. I am prepared to let the board decide, as it is more likely than the Minister or I to get the answer right. We both havean interest in the outcome—neither of us is truly disinterested. The board, on the other hand, will have to consider only the public interest and is therefore most likely to be impartial and objective and to be seen as such. The thrust of the reforms presumes that the board making the decision is more likely to inspire trust in the integrity of that decision than if it were made by Ministers, as the Financial Secretary proposes. Let us take the decisions out of the hands of the politicians. We believe that we can trust the board to get the decision right. The premise that we can trust the board to make sensible and objective decisions surely underlies the thrust of the reforms.

I repeat the appeal that I made to the Minister on Second Reading to publish the draft secondary legislation that he intends to propose under the clause. Only then can the Committee have an informed debate about the consequences of clause 11 and the regime that the Government envisage. When does the Minister plan to publish the secondary legislation? Will he propose any changes apart from the reduction of the access period to 40.5 hours to align the pre-release access period for market-sensitive and non-market-sensitive statistics? That was the change that he announced on Second Reading. Apart from that change, are the current rules to be replicated? Will pre-release access apply to the same number of people? If not, what restrictions does the Minister envisage imposing? Will pre-release access apply to the same statistics as it does now? If not, what restrictions does the Minister propose? Will any distinction be made in the pre-release rules between official and national statistics? Will the National Statistician or the board have any discretion to extend early access in particular cases in which they feel there is a pressing need to do so? Will the procedures for investigating pre-release access be strengthened, given that the Statistics Commission has expressed concern that they are insufficiently robust?

That the time for reform has come is clearly illustrated by the responses to the consultation, of which virtually every one expressed dissatisfaction with the present rules. The Minister’s announcement of a reduction in the access period for non-market- sensitive data, from five days to 40.5 hours, is welcome, but it does not go far enough to allay the real concern of the statistical community and the general public about pre-release access, about which my hon. Friends and other hon. Members have already spoken.

The UK’s rules stand out as being out of line with best practice and International Monetary Fund standards. As we have heard, many countries do not allow pre-release access at all and in those that do, the longest period is considerably shorter than it is here. Tim Holt, the former head of the Government statistical service, makes a compelling point when he says that the UK rules

“give pre-release access to more people, for a longer period and for a much wider range of statistics than in any other...country”.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks highlighted the lengthy list of people to whom pre-release access is given. When I sent to Tim Holt a few examples of the people listed by Departments as having pre-release access, he told me that he was dismayed by the number of people who have been granted access since the Government’s framework for statistics in 2000 explicitly gave Ministers authority over pre-release.

The fact that Ministers get figures days in advance of the public and their political opponents fuels the understandable concern that that time will be used to prepare the ground and spin figures. The Prime Minister’s leak of unemployment figures to the TUC was a clear and blatant breach of the rules, which moved the markets. Still worse, the Prime Minister put a misleading spin on the figures. He said:

“Tomorrow I think we shall see—for the first time in some months—a fall again in unemployment which will be very welcome indeed”.

In fact, the International Labour Organisation measure of unemployment increased that month, although there was a modest fall in the claimant count. Thatis an example of a leak that was spun for political reasons.

On Second Reading, the Minister pointed out that the cases listed by the Statistics Commission in which figures have been leaked in that blatant manner prior to publication are limited and sometimes the leak was inadvertent. More prevalent is the use of pre-release access to give Ministers an advantage in preparing the ground for bad news. Professor Roger Jowell of City University highlighted the fact that

“the period during which ministers have sole access to new statistics is a great deal longer”

in the UK than elsewhere. He concluded:

“This allows bad news to be discounted in advance and generally encourages leaks.”

The discounting of bad news identified by Professor Jowell is the more prevalent problem. Simon Briscoe, statistics editor of the Financial Times, told the Treasury Committee:

“there is an awful lot of softening up that goes on.”

To illustrate that he talked about a story on the importance of animal testing in medical research that was placed in the media shortly before the Government were due to publish statistics on the rising levels of animal testing, so a controversial statistic was softened up in advance by a story that might reduce the public’s concern about the statistics.

Liam Halligan, economics editor of The Telegraph, has also provided evidence that the Government routinely use their early access to statistics to assist their news management. He said:

“I can tell you from personal experience that pre-release is constantly used by the government to divert the media from numbers which make for uncomfortable reading. It allows pre-emptive spin, with government departments sometimes putting out data designed to contradict evidence about to be revealed by the industrious, independent boffins at the ONS.”

We should remember that even a few cases in which inside information on the content of upcoming statistical releases is used to massage the news agenda can significantly undermine confidence in official statistics. Len Cook said of the problem:

“In my time as National Statistician, I was never made aware of any statistics that were falsified, but I believe that the prevalence of practices by Ministers to influence the context of release for politically sensitive statistics has led to some believing that even the worst practices could occur.”

The laxness of the rules on pre-release significantly contribute to undermining trust.

Many have called for a restriction on ministerial access to pre-release, including the Statistics Commission. Professor David Rhind said on its behalf:

“The Commission starts from the position that Ministers and departments must accept the principle that no political capital should be made from statistics before they are in the public domain and that the opportunity to do so should be severely restricted.”

The official Opposition share many of the commission’s concerns in this matter. Charles Bean, chief economist at the Bank of England, acknowledged:

“We do recognise that narrowing, or even eliminating, existing arrangements for Ministerial pre-release access might have significant benefits on the public’s perception of the integrity of the statistical process, which might outweigh the gains in policy formulation.”

In the light of the concerns that have been expressed, I appeal to the Minister to accept that if his reform is to restore trust in statistics, it should embrace fully the controversial issue of pre-release. If we can trust the board to make decisions on how other statistical matters are determined, we can surely trust it to make decisions on an issue that has such a significant impact on public trust in official statistics and on Ministers’ ability to spin them for their own political purposes.

Celia Barlow (Labour, Hove)

I rise to defend the principle of pre-release access to statistics for Ministers. It is sadly cynical to claim that the privilege automatically leads to abuse as Opposition Members have tried to make us believe. It is right, for example, that the independent Phillis review of Government communications considered the practice and questioned the 40.5 hours advance notice for Ministers. That is an arbitrary figure, and although I agree with the hon. Lady that the time can be changed according to circumstances, to cut it to four hours would surely prevent Ministers from giving the statistics any serious treatment—[Laughter.] The Phillis review did not question the principle.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

Ministers in other countries manage with much shorter periods. Is that not an argument for saying that Ministers could cope with a four-hour period for non-market-sensitive statistics?

Celia Barlow (Labour, Hove)

Perhaps the hon. Lady will be able to inform me whether performance in those other countries is effective, because I would question that.

It is also true that the Phillis review found no evidence that the right has been abused.

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

On an earlier point, will the hon. Lady explain what she means by “treatment” by Ministers?

Celia Barlow (Labour, Hove)

I shall come to that later in my speech.

Regardless of that lack of evidence, the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet has implied that an overzealous Government regularly use statistics for unethical over-hyping. I think that that is also what the hon. Member for Braintree is referring to. However, all the evidence shows that abuses have been extremely rare—I acknowledge that they have happened—and that if they have happened, they have been minor and the Government have apologised where necessary.

The general principle of pre-release access needs to be kept. Ministers are publicly accountable. We have talked about market-sensitive statistics. Let us imagine a time—I hope it is far away—when an official economic statistic sparks an extreme reaction by the financial markets. We know that that has happened in the past, albeit not recently. That would have disastrous consequences for mortgage lenders, pension savers and shareholders. We simply cannot leave the Government unprepared or leave them only four hours to prepare and expect Ministers to come up with a reasonable policy reply. How the statistics are used by the media is a side issue compared to the need for the Government to have the information on how to govern effectively.

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

Can the hon. Lady explain what is particular about the ability or intelligence of her Ministers that means that they cannot deal with the four-hour parameter when Ministers in most other countries seem to be able to deal with less time? Is it their intellectual shortcomings?

Celia Barlow (Labour, Hove)

That is a rather cheap point, if I may say so. What I find difficult to understand is why the hon. Gentleman feels that giving Ministers sufficient warning to deal with something that might affect the livelihood of our business leaders is a mistake. To be honest, the media spin is less important than Minister’s ability to deal with problems as they arise. In the past, we have had situations where statistics have suddenly been presented that have had disastrous effects.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Black Wednesday.

Celia Barlow (Labour, Hove)

My hon. Friend, from a sedentary position, mentions Black Wednesday, which is exactly what I was referring to.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

Does my hon. Friend not agree that Opposition Members seem to be ignoring the impact on reality of spin by the media? I offer her the old saying: a lie runs halfway around the world before truth has got its boots on.

Celia Barlow (Labour, Hove)

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. It is important also that Ministers are able to deal with the correct statistics rather than the hype put out by the media.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

On the point that my hon. Friend is developing about ministerial reaction in relation to market-sensitive information, would she agree that of the major industrialised countries the United Kingdom has been the most economically stable in recent years, as indicated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development?

Celia Barlow (Labour, Hove)

I entirely agree. It is in stark contrast with earlier years, when Ministers may not have had sufficient time to rescue the economy from statistics that, for them, were extremely unfortunate.

We can argue about the time frame, although to cut it from 40 hours to four would in fact pre-empt a decision by the board—the board that the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet is so anxious should have the power to set a limit. Any time frame needs to be decided with common sense and should be subject to particular circumstances. For example, crime statistics are different from the retail prices index, which is different from figures about recycling.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I stated clearly that the board should decide. I was asked my opinion of the justifiable pre-release access rules, and I gave an opinion. It should be the board taking the decision.

Celia Barlow (Labour, Hove)

I agree that the hon. Lady made that point; that is why I found is so surprising that she came up with a figure on the spur of the moment.

I agree with the Government that pre-release access is not dishonourable. It is a means to govern. It is necessary. I also agree that the exact time frame should be regulated by secondary legislation rather than by Opposition Front Benchers.

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

Clause 11 begins with two important provisions. The first is that

“The Code of Practice for National Statistics under section 10 may not deal with any matter relating to the granting of pre-release access to official statistics.”

The second is that:

“The appropriate authority”—

a rather vague phrase—

“may for the purposes of the Code by order provide for rules and principles relating to the granting of pre-release access to official statistics.”

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

I have hardly started, but I am delighted to give way.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

“Appropriate authority” may be a vague phrase to the hon. Gentleman, but it is defined in clause 11(6).

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that instructive information.

I have a number of difficulties with the deliberate exclusion of pre-release from the purview of the board’s code of practice. In many ways, it is the black hole at the centre of the Bill. We heard much about “perception” from the hon. Member for Twickenham and my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks. The Financial Secretary told the Select Committee inquiry that he

“would certainly accept that the pre-release arrangements contribute to the perception of interference in statistics.”

He then said that

“Part of the drive to legislate now to entrench the independence is to try to deal with some of the problems that are still there in perception.”

The problem is therefore simple. Does the omission of pre-release arrangements from the remit of the board’s code of practice harm the perception of independence? I believe that it does. If the Financial Secretary disagrees, let him give his reasons.

The greater problem is that pre-release has not simply been forgotten, but has been deliberately removed from the arrangements that are intended to guarantee independence. We have ended up with a Bill to entrench independence that does not entrench a significant perceived failing of independence. The Bill may actually make the problem worse because it could reasonably be thought that the Government have something to hide by dodging the bullet on pre-release. Delegating pre-release to the Treasury and the devolved Administrations puts it firmly out of sight and out of mind.

The Financial Secretary himself drew the Select Committee’s attention to the fact that pre-release is a widely accepted principle internationally, but when it comes to international practice there is little common ground, and the Government have admitted as much. What has happened to his commitment to the Committee to look at the details of current practice? The Government’s response to the Select Committee’s recommendations was uncommunicative, to say the least, with four promises of ongoing consideration and precious little else.

I want to probe further why this specific matter is reserved to the Treasury and the devolved Administrations when such a decision seems entirely contrary to the avowed principle of the Bill. Allowing Ministers’ pre-release access to be controlled by ministerial fiat could not give a more effective shot in the arm to suspicions that there is Government interference in statistics. The situation is hardly helped by the requirement of an affirmative resolution procedure.

The perception of independence will not be boosted by reassuring the public that if Parliament does not approve of what the Treasury and the devolved Administrations are up to, we can just throw it out. Parliament has not managed to do that since 1969, when I was 11 years old. There is not much chance of the House getting fired up enough about statistics to choose that issue to break with that past habit.

I want the Government to clarify their position. On Second Reading, the Economic Secretary wound up the debate with a promise that the debate on pre-release

“will be held in the House when details of the regulations are published. They will then be debated in Committee under the affirmative resolution procedure.”—[Official Report, 8 January 2007; Vol. 455, c. 109.]

We may well be able to debate the regulations made under clause 62 in Committee, but we can only hope to accept them or reject them. If parliamentary scrutiny is required, the proper time for a debate on the precise scope of pre-release would be now, in this Committee, not in a hypothetical future Committee. It would be preferable if the whole issue were turned over to the independent board as part of the new code of practice.

Assuming for the moment that the House will not reject the Treasury’s proposed code outright, there is still no scope for it to be improved. It is therefore cold comfort for the Financial Secretary to argue that the pre-release code has “special status”. Does he believe that the rest of the code will be weaker than the previous codes concerning pre-release because they are merely backed but not prescribed by statute?

I am curious about how the Government intend to square the circle. Why did they go to the trouble of exempting pre-release from the code of practice? The Financial Secretary was clear on Second Reading that the pre-release arrangements would be vetted and reported on to the House by the board. He also reassured the House that the board’s general duties towards coverage, good practice and standards will extend to the oversight of ministerial compliance with the pre-release code. But if the board’s oversight of the ministerial pre-release code is so strong, why not go the whole hog and turn over control of pre-release arrangements to the board?

Conversely, if the argument is that the board cannot both propose and police a code of practice, there are implications not just for clause 11 or the previous clause but for the whole Bill. The double standards that have been set up between the board’s code of practice and the ministerial code on pre-release threaten to undermine the perception of independence. The amendments as proposed will therefore restore a crucial balance to the code of practice and to the Bill.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I have some short points to make onthe amendments proposed by the hon. Members for Sevenoaks and for Twickenham. The thrust of the amendments, as I understand it from the hon. Member of Sevenoaks, is to do with the time limit on pre-release access and with the number of people to whom information is pre-released, yet as far as I can see none of his amendments directly addresses either of those issues. They simply say, to put a gloss on them, that the board will decide. At least the hon. Member for Twickenham sets a two-hour limit—which may be a little tight—in his amendment No. 84.

I have to say to my hon. Friend the Minister that I have some sympathy with the proposition that there should be a short time limit for pre-release access—much shorter than the 40.5 hours, which is now apparently to apply to market-sensitive and non-market-sensitive information. There seems to have been a convergence in that respect. The Government have shortened what they inherited in 1997 from the previous Government, but the limit is too long. Where I disagree with the official Opposition and favour the position advertised in amendment No. 84, proposed by the hon. Member for Twickenham, is on the proposals that the limit should be decided by the board. I think that that is a matter for Parliament. Certainly the time limit and possibly the number of people who have access—although that would be more difficult—should be framed in primary legislation, not decided by the board or approved by an affirmative resolution. The time limit should be a much shorter period than40.5 hours.

I ask my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to look again at pre-release. Both he and, on Second Reading, the Economic Secretary said that it would be reviewed in 12 months’ time. I hope that following that review the time limits will be shortened considerably and included in primary legislation, not left to secondary legislation or, certainly, to the board, as the amendments would have.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

As previous speakers have said, we have here one of the most important and controversial elements of the Bill, although also, in some respects, the least complex. Broadly, the distinction between the Opposition and the Government is that we believe that the board should decide the rules on pre-release, but the Government believe that that should remain in the hands of Ministers. Given that within pretty much all other statistical areas and all other areas of the Bill such matters are left to the statistics board—which is the purpose of the Bill—the onus is very much on the Government to make the case that Ministers should retain control in what is, after all, an exception to the general rule. The case is not unique—we will be debating the retail prices index, when the Government can again make their case, although we have a specific argument to make in that respect. The onus is on the Government to explain why they should retain control in relation to pre-release.

Hon. Members should bear in mind public opinion within the statistical community. On Second Reading, when the Financial Secretary referred to the number of respondents in the consultation, I asked how many supported the Government approach. I did not get a specific answer, but I think that the Financial Secretary acknowledged that there was widespread concern about pre-release. Indeed, my hon. Friends the Members for Sevenoaks and for Braintree referred to the evidence given to the Treasury Sub-Committee on 14 June by the Financial Secretary acknowledging the perception of difficulties.

On Second Reading on 8 January 2007, the Financial Secretary said of the consultation that

“many respondents strongly considered the arrangements for pre-release needed to be tightened and that arrangements for pre-release as they currently stand contributed to a lack of public trust in our statistics.”—[Official Report, 8 January 2007;Vol. 455, c. 30.]

I entirely agree with those remarks. Given the opinions that my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet quoted, and the views expressed by many in the statistical community on the arrangements for pre-release as they will stand following the passing of the Bill—if it is passed in its current form—it would seem that the Government’s proposals will continue to contribute to a lack of public trust in our statistics.

Given that the onus is on the Government to make their case, I hope we will hear a number of examples from the Financial Secretary. He implied on Second Reading that he would provide examples of cases in which the Government have been able to make use of their pre-release access to statistics in order, not to spin a story, but to develop policy announcements—in other words, to be able to respond in a way that the hon. Member for Hove was referring to earlier and in a way that will allow the Government to react to events.

The hon. Member for Hove painted a picture that rather suggested a Government micro-managing the economy and responding to every single statistic, as perhaps was the case in former times. I think even the Government would argue that a successful economy requires a framework rather than a number of discretionary decisions made from time to time. My argument, and the argument made by many Members, is that pre-release access is used not for the purposes of developing policy and being able to produce policy in time for economic statistics so that the Government are able to adapt very quickly but instead for presenting the figures in as favourable a light as possible for the Government.

On Second Reading, when pressed to illustrate the way in which the Government are able to change policy or make a policy announcement along with an announcement of statistics, the Economic Secretary gave an example. As is his wont, he referred to the workings of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England and specifically to the way in which it would be useful for the Government to have access to the consumer prices index some time in advance of publication so that, in the event of the Governor of the Bank of England being required to write an open letter explaining why the inflation target had been missed, the Government would be in a position to make a policy announcement very quickly. Such a letter has not had to be written to date, but I am not sure whether the Economic Secretary was quite aware of how topical his example was. None the less, it was a useful example and highlights one or two issues about pre-release that are directly relevant to some of the amendments in front of us today.

While preparing for this Bill, I looked at this issue and was aware of the 40.5 hours limit on the pre-release of market-sensitive information. I was interested in some of the news stories relating to the last meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England as it was very obvious that the Bank of England and the Monetary Policy Committee had access to the CPI figures not 40.5 hours ahead of their release at 9.30 am on 16 January, when we learned of the increase in inflation, but some time before that. For a moment, I got a little excited about this, which is not something I thought I would ever do. It appeared that the Bank of England had access prior to what would be required under the usual rules. My interest was further developed when I noticed the evidence given by the Governor of the Bank of England to the Treasury Committee in June of last year when he stated that his committee had 36 hours pre-release access. At that point I thought, “There is something quite wrong here,” because the Bank of England clearly had access before that. However, I am grateful to the good offices of the House of Commons Library and, in particular, to Mr. Ross Young, who pursued the matter and made inquiries with the Office for National Statistics and the Treasury.

What emerged was that there is an exemption to the usual 40.5 hours rule when the Monetary Policy Committee meets the week before the inflation figure is due to be announced. That is entirely sensible: the committee clearly needs access to all the information, and if evidence is available, it should be provided with it. One can make a distinction between the Bank of England and the Treasury, notwithstanding the fact that a Treasury official is present at all Monetary Policy Committee meetings. However, there is an argument for pre-release access for the Bank of England in those circumstances. The case highlights the fact that we can trust the board. The Bank of England has access in those circumstances because of an agreement between the then National Statistician, Len Cook, and the Governor of the Bank England that there were good reasons for it.

That leads me to the broader point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet. The Bill gives significant powers to the statistics board. We can argue about its composition and exactly which roles will be performed by whom, but there is agreement in the Committee that it is right for the statistics board to have substantial powers. We trust the board to drawup methodologies, definitions and so on. Why do Ministers not trust it to develop sensible, pragmatic rules on pre-release? It is a sensitive matter and one on which there is concern about ministerial involvement, and I am yet to be persuaded or hear a sensible case. I look forward to the Minister addressing those concerns and providing clear-cut examples of Ministers making use of pre-release statistics in a way that helps with not just the presentation of policy—that has been the problem—but its development.

On what the limit should be and whether it should be four hours or left to the board to decide, there is a body of opinion that the current period of time is far too long. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West acknowledged that. The inevitable result of letting the board have that power would be that, in most cases, there would be a substantial reduction in pre-release because the chances are that the board would be in tune with the consensus among statisticians that a shorter time is necessary. I do not know whether it would decide on three, four or five hours, but it would be likely to reduce it.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I am opposed to the board-centred approach, and I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the example that he gave on the arrangements between the Office for National Statistics and the Monetary Policy Committee. I understand his point, but given that the statistics in question are published regularly, a much simpler way of working would have been for the Monetary Policy Committee to change the date of its meeting. Instead Len Cook, who has been prayed in aid of by both the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet, suggested a longer period. Let us be honest: he did not exactly have a distinguished career at the ONS. It kept correcting major statistics when he was at the helm. So the one example that the hon. Gentleman gives is of a lengthening of the period.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I was about to make a point on that. On Second Reading, the hon. Gentleman asked my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet whether she would support the right of the statistics board occasionally to lengthen the period for pre-release access. I was going to make that point because there might be circumstances in which it is right to do that. He makes a fair point: the MPC could meet on another day. However, I do not intend to explore that issue now.

None the less, I believe that a pragmatic approach could be to put powers in the hands of the board. For the most part, that would involve a reduction in pre-release access, but there might be exceptions, such as in matters involving the Bank of England, to which I referred. In such circumstances, we should trust the board, assuming that the right people are in place, to make the right decisions. I hope, therefore, to support a number of these amendments.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

As several hon. Members have said, this is a considerable group of amendments dealing with some of the most substantial issues of concern in the Bill. Our debate has reminded us of the interest in pre-release, which extends beyond the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Hove mentioned that the Phillis review looked at those arrangements, as have a number of other external independent reviews. However, she rightly pointed out the importance of pre-release to the Government.

The hon. Member for Braintree queried the term “appropriate authority” and my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West pointed him to clause 11(6). I thought that he might have referred him to the explanatory notes, which the hon. Gentleman might find helpful as well. However, in a moment, I shall deal with the reason for the term “appropriate authority”—the Treasury and devolved Administrations.

My hon. Friend said that he sympathised with shortening the time scale for pre-release access. Although we might differ on the detail, we agree that pre-release is important enough to be dealt with by Parliament. I am encouraged that the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire is getting excited about statistics and that he admits it to the Committee. If he will forgive me, I shall deal with his points in the body of my comments.

The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet made a serious point when she said that no political capital should be made of statistics prior to release. She is absolutely right and the new arrangements will help with that: shorter periods of access for non-market sensitive data, tighter arrangements codified in secondary legislation and complemented by the release of national statistics through a central hub and the separation of statistical figures and commentary from policy or political commentary.

There is a clear case for pre-release access to statistics. That was recognised by the Treasury Committee in its July 2006 report and acknowledged on Second Reading and again today by the hon. Member for Twickenham. The principle is accepted and established internationally with many countries, including Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Japan and the USA providing pre-release access to some statistics to Ministers and policy officials at least a day before publication. The hon. Member for Twickenham mentioned the United States and my hon. Friend the Member for Hove asked how tight the systems are elsewhere in practice compared with the understanding of how they operate in theory.

In particular, it is worth dwelling on the question of the United States and the assertion that pre-release access by the US President is restricted to 30 minutes. That assertion seems to be based on evidence given to the Treasury Committee during its inquiry. I have to say that the Treasury Committee was misinformed. Witnesses asserted that the President gets pre-release access that is restricted to 30 minutes, but they misread the US official guidelines. Let me quote from the Office of Management and Budget’s statistical policy directive No. 3, published in 1985. It clearly states:

“The agency will provide prerelease information to the President, through the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, as soon as it is available.”

It then states:

“The agency may grant others prerelease access only under the following conditions”

and it then lists four conditions, including

“Any prerelease of information under an embargo shall not precede the official release time by more than 30 minutes.”

That applies not to the President through the Council of Economic Advisors, but to “others”.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

I thank the Minister for that correction, but as we are dealing here not with political debating points but with statements of fact, could the Treasury produce an explanatory note on this point, because what he has said directly contradicts what the Royal Statistical Society said in briefing us? I am referring to its very helpful little note on international practice on pre-release access to national statistics. That certainly gave us the impression that, as a matter of fact, the United States rules are much more restrictive than the Minister has stated. As it is important that we are all starting from the same correct basis of fact, could he produce a note explaining why the Royal Statistical Society is wrong?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I am happy to let the Committee have such a note. It is important that we deal with matters of fact, and that when we cite figures in our debates we get them right. I will include reference to the formal returns that the US makes to the International Monetary Fund on data dissemination and standards, because they confirm that, for data on national accounts, employment, unemployment, wages and earnings, consumer prices and producer prices, the President receives a copy of the actual data release the evening prior to release. I am sure that the mistake is an honest one and that the Royal Statistical Society would want to recheck its information sources and correct any error in the figures that it has been using and has released to the House, so I will certainly, if it is of benefit to the Committee, as the hon. Member for Twickenham suggests, prepare a factual note on the issue.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

This is an interesting exchange, and the Minister is absolutely right to suggest that it is important for us to be sure of facts, but does that not make the point that not all scrutiny of figures before they are released is about spin? Much of it may be about checking the context and things like that, which are potentially very illuminating to the reader and the user of statistics.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

My right hon. Friend is, as he has been consistently in our discussions, spot-on. He makes a point in support of the general principle of pre-release access, particularly for the Government, although other bodies—the Statistics Commission, for instance—have made submissions to the Treasury Committee arguing that pre-release access should be granted also to the media and to those on the Opposition Front Bench. In fact, the Treasury Committee recommended that, and although none of the amendments directly proposes it—to be clear, I am dealing with the general point because it is widely made—amendments Nos. 21 and 22 and amendment No. 92, which we discussed in the previous group, would allow it. If the concern about pre-release access is for well ordered—

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

Amendment No. 92 would just give the board power to set the rules. It does not say that the board must allow access by Opposition spokesmen or by the media. I do not understand the point the Minister is making.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I am making the point that if the hon. Lady placed the responsibility on the board, as under amendment No. 92 and the proposals in amendments Nos. 21 and 22, such an arrangement could be put in place. I am not saying that the board must put it in place; that is not the tenor of the amendments. However, pre-release statistics are an important issue that has been widely discussed and two of the amendments that we are considering in this group would allow that to take place if they were passed.

On pre-release, if the concern is for the well-ordered release of statistical information into the public realm, to distinguish more clearly between statistical information and policy comment, and to reduce the risk of disclosing new figures before the officially planned and appointed time, frankly there is no better way of achieving exactly the opposite than to allow the press and Opposition pre-release access—other than perhaps the requirement to pre-release by uploading to YouTube or MySpace.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

The Financial Secretary is making a case against giving the Opposition and the media pre-release access, but why does he think the board would not be persuaded to give pre-release access?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

The board may or may not be persuaded. There are, as I have said, a wide range of voices including the Treasury Select Committee and the Statistics Commission, which, if they are consistent, would urge the board to do just that. I am arguing why in principle and in practice pre-release is a sufficiently bad idea to warrant our ensuring that the framing of the legislation does not accommodate it. However, it is an interesting question and I would be interested to know whether the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet agrees with the Treasury Select Committee and the Statistics Commission that pre-release access to statistics should be available to the official Opposition and/or to the press.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I am open-minded and open to be persuaded on that if the board want to go down that route. The thrust of what this reform should eventually lead to is restricting pre-release access. That makes me sceptical of the idea of access being extended to Opposition spokesmen. I am not persuaded of the arguments for such an extension at the moment although I remain open-minded to persuasion on it.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that clarification. She has been very clear and is right to be sceptical. It is interesting that she takes a position that may not be consistent with the views of some of her colleagues on the Treasury Select Committee or on other wider bodies.

I pointed out some of the perverse practical effects that such a provision may lead to, but perhaps we should leave those aside and consider the principal case for such arrangements. Again, I struggle with that. The principle of restricted pre-release access to named officials and Ministers is well established in this country and others. That principle is widely accepted by us and by those on the Opposition Front Benches, which I welcome. The principal case for pre-release arrangements is surely based on the fact that it is the Government and not the Opposition or the media who are responsible for policy and Ministers who are accountable for it.

Pre-release access allows the Government to account for the impact and implications of policy when important new statistics are released—as the public have a right to expect and as the British media have come to demand. That also provides a fundamental safeguard and enables the Government to consider and plan contingency measures that may be needed alongside a statistical release to guard against a disproportionate or costly market or public reaction. That is an important point and is particularly true for market-sensitive statistics. Governments are ultimately responsible for maintaining economic and financial stability and pre-release access to data may be necessary to meet that responsibility.

The hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire urged me to set out specific examples where a facility for pre-release statistics has been used. The importance is more as a safeguard against circumstances in which they may be needed, not because it is regularly required and used. On Second Reading, both the Economic Secretary and I gave the example of the open letter system, under which the Governor of the Bank of England is required to write to the Chancellor should the inflation target not be met. Pre-release access to inflation data enables the Bank to write the letter and the Government to respond at the point at which the inflation data are published. The publication of the Governor’s letter and the Government’s response would aim to reduce market uncertainty and any consequent market disruption, but that would not be possible were sufficient pre-release access removed.

Pre-release is also required to enable Ministers to respond immediately when non-market-sensitive statistics are sometimes released. For example, if a survey showed that drug use among young people had risen dramatically, my ministerial colleagues in the Department of Health would rightly be expected to explain, accurately and promptly, to Parliament andto the public what steps the Government were taking to deal with the issue.

Although there is rightly some debate and differences of view among us over the precise pre-release practice that might be appropriate, I hope that we can achieve some clarity and consensus in the Committee on the principle of Ministers and officials having such access.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

Does the Minister agree that although there is a wide consensus, across parties here and across countries, about pre-release for market-sensitive information, there is no such consensus anywhere outside the UK that that principle should also apply to non-market sensitive social data? Does he agree that, unless the Royal Statistical Society has again shown itself to be not infallible, every other country specifically precludes the release of social data in the way that he has described?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

The hon. Gentleman has wide international experience in such matters and he is right: there is no consensus or consistency among the systems that different countries have for compiling or releasing data, or for putting in place pre-release arrangements for their statistics. The arrangements, including on pre-release, tend to be fashioned to reflect the individual country’s needs and circumstances. In Britain, the public expect, the media demand and Parliament requires Ministers to be able to account fully for their policies and their implementation. The statistics that are released in public show significant features that require explanation.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

In moving the amendment, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks made a slight joke about the Health Protection Agency—I think it was two and half days before we had the statistics on that. The hon. Member for Twickenham has also talked about social statistics. However, if, for example, people involved in health protection found out that in the past week 15,000 people had died from avian flu, the Government would wish to move swiftly on that. That is a social statistic. If it were simply released and there had been no preparation whatever by the Government, there could be mass panic.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

Not for the first time, my hon. Friend has grasped the essential point a little more rapidly than some Opposition Members. However, none of the amendments in the group would abolish pre-release entirely. I welcome that degree of consensus, which has also been apparent in this debate.

The amendments in the group seek to place the pre-release arrangements with the board, for it to determine as part of the code of practice. Under such a system, the board could do away with pre-release arrangements altogether. I disagree with that approach. Given the importance of pre-release, the Bill has been drafted to ensure that the pre-release arrangements will be tightened and given a special status within the new system. It is important that the Committee should be clear about the elements of the new arrangements, which I am happy to spell out.

Brooks Newmark (Conservative, Braintree)

I remain confused. It was in fact the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West who helped to guide me to this point on clause 6. Given the Financial Secretary’s earlier admission that there is a perception of interference in statistics, I still do not understand why our proposal in the amendment that the board should decide the parameters—the rules that guide—would not give greater public confidence than what the Government propose, which is that the Treasury will ultimately make the rules that guide pre-release. I do not understand why the Minister’s proposal is stronger than what our amendments propose.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

My argument is, first, given the importance of pre-release, it is appropriate that Parliament, not the board, scrutinises and finally approves the rules and procedures that relate to pre-release access. Secondly, the process should have special status, which it is given by the Bill, requiring such scrutiny and approval of Parliament, and the devolved Administrations, where appropriate. Thirdly, the process should reflect the proper devolved settlement so that the devolved Administrations have responsibility for the fully devolved statistics. Fourthly and finally, there will also be an important role for the independent board. It will assess and monitor compliance with the rules set out in the secondary legislation, approved by Parliament, as part of its assessment of general compliance with the terms of the code. That is the approach that we believe to be correct, which is reflected in the Bill.

I have been clear that there is a case for tightening the system, and the hon. Member for Sevenoaks mentioned this when moving amendment No. 21. I said so in oral evidence to the Treasury Committee, in response to the consultation and on Second Reading. I also said on Second Reading that, after taking into account concerns about the extent of pre-release and the perceptions of potential abuse of the system, the Government had decided to tighten current pre-release arrangements by aligning the pre-release access for non-market-sensitive national statistics with that for market-sensitive statistics, so that pre-release for all national statistics will be set at 40.5 hours. In other words, a time of 5 pm would be set—after the markets have closed—two days before a 9.30 am release.

We also announced that the Government would provide in secondary legislation guidance to Departments that access should be limited to those individuals who really required the data. Following our debate on Second Reading, I have written to the Committee, as has been referred to, setting out my expectations of the types of issue that the principles in the guidance will deal with.

I hope that I have answered some of the questions that hon. Members asked about. I have ensured that the process will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, and that Parliament will have a further scrutiny and approval role in the arrangements. Suffice it to say that I am confident that the new arrangements will provide greater clarity, certainty, transparency and enforceability than the current ones and they will help to reduce perceptions of ministerial interference in statistical release.

As I explained on Second Reading, the Bill establishes a general statistical system that can be developed in light of experience—a point to which my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West referred—and we shall review the operation of the new pre-release system 12 months after it starts.

Amendment No. 21 is similar to amendment No. 92, and was tabled by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks. It would require the code of practice to deal with any matter relating to pre-release access to official statistics. Clause 11(3) already ensures that the code will apply in relation to any official statistics as if it included the rules and principles established by order under subsection (2). That reflects the fact that, given the importance of pre-release, Parliament and not the board should ultimately approve the rules and procedures relating to pre-release access to statistics in the final form prior to publication. The code will be backed by statute but not set out in statute, so pre-release access has been given special status under the system. That means that Parliament will be required to scrutinise and approve it through an affirmative resolution under clause 62 with appropriate arrangements in the devolved Administrations.

Amendment No. 22, tabled by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks, would allow the board to determine rules and procedures for pre-release via such an order. Although there are some examples of non-ministerial offices or bodies with the powers to make secondary legislation—including the Registrar General, who is the subject of part 2 of the Bill—that is a relatively unusual provision, as the hon. Gentleman will concede. I must make it clear to the Committee that there is no legal or technical reason why an independent body could not be given the power to bring secondary legislation, but it is unusual for the simple reason that when such instruments are subject to a parliamentary procedure, as they would be under clause 62, no member of that body can participate in the discussion or any vote on the substance.

On the rare occasions that a non-ministerial body has powers to make subordinate legislation, a Minister is required to speak on behalf of that body in the House. Clearly, that would result in the slightly bizarre situation that a Minister who had no involvement in the making of the order or in the policy behind it would be expected to lead a parliamentary discussion of the order. I do not see that that is a sensible arrangement for the future.

Amendments Nos. 83 and 84 when read together are designed, as the hon. Member for Twickenham made clear, to limit the length of pre-release access that could be provided to the Government or the devolved Administrations to two hours before general release. I think that the hon. Gentleman might accept that two hours is simply not sufficient for consideration or to allow the sorts of measures that might be required.

Amendment No. 43, tabled by the hon. Member for Twickenham, also essentially supports the contention that it should be the board rather than Ministers who set the pre-release arrangements. I hope that I have already set out why Ministers in the devolved Administrations rather than the board should set the arrangements and why Parliament should be allowed to scrutinise those arrangements through the order-making process. I do not accept his argument. I cannot accept the amendments and, if they are pressed to a vote, I shall ask my hon. Friends to oppose them.

Amendments Nos. 26 and 27 were tabled by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks. The protocol on release practices establishes the requirement that Departments publish lists of who is entitled to have privileged early access and for how long for each statistical release. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman read from those lists earlier in the debate. I expect that requirement to continue into the new system. As my letter to the Committee last week made clear, I expect the secondary legislation to set out the rules and principles for deciding the number of officials in each Department who receive pre-release access with a view to tightening and making more consistent the arrangements across Government, including for the reporting and public confirmation of such arrangements.

I hope that on that basis hon. Members will be prepared to accept clause 11 and will not vote against its standing part of the Bill. I hope that they will reflect and not press their amendments to a vote, but if they do I shall have to ask my hon. Friends to resist.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I appreciate this opportunity to make a brief intervention, Sir John. There are one or two questions to which I have not received answers from the Minister, although I may have missed them. It would be useful to know when he will publish the draft secondary legislation. Will it be in time for us to consider it before the next stage in the parliamentary process?

The Minister confirmed that the rules should be tightened and he gave us one example in relation to the changes to the five-day rule. Are there any other ways in which the periods for pre-release access will be tightened in the draft secondary legislation? He said that he would expect a reduction in the number of people who have pre-release access to statistics. Is he prepared to give any further detail about how that restriction will operate?

The hon. Gentleman did not address the issue of whether there are at present statistics to which pre-release access is granted that should be knocked off the pre-release list altogether. Can the Committee conclude that the draft secondary legislation will continue pre-release access for all the statistics to which it currently applies? Are the Government mindful of the concerns expressed by the Opposition about the extent of the different statistical series that are covered?

The matter was referred to by Dr. Ivan Fellegi in his evidence to the Treasury Committee as something that concerned him. He said that in Canada, where he is the chief statistician, pre-release access applied only to those statistical series where there was a strong and powerful reason for pre-release. Are the Government still contemplating tightening the rules in that respect?

I appreciate the Minister’s lengthy clarification of the position, but I would welcome the opportunity to vote on amendment No. 21. I also want to vote against clause 11 stand part to reflect our concerns, fully expressed in the debate, that the board should determine the pre-release access rules. Clause 11 would significantly undermine the strength of the proposed reforms.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

The Minister has earned the respect of the Committee by giving good answers to most of the questions on the clauses, even when we disagreed with him. However, on this clause he is clutching at straws. There are two basic issues. We are no longer debating the principle of pre-release in respect of market-sensitive data, but we are still debating the issue of principle in relation to the release of social data.

One example that was plucked out of the air by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West related to avian flu, which the Minister seized upon like a desert traveller grasping at a bottle of water. The more I thought about that example, the more bizarre it seemed that we would discover an epidemic of avian flu as a result of trawling through annual statistics on animal husbandry—

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Weekly statistics.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

Well, whatever they are, the point is that even if such national emergencies came to light as result of that statistical work, they could easily be allowed for. Indeed, several OECD countries such as New Zealand allow for special cases when the Government can have pre-release access in order to deal with those problems. That is subject to the proviso that access is announced when the statistics are released and that the National Statistician gives a certificate of approval that it is the correct procedure. If that is the way the Government want to go, then we could table an amendment at a later stage to deal with that contingency.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

Given the likelihood that thousands of deaths would be noticed, perhaps the example given by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West was over-dramatic. However, agricultural statistics might show an impact, and I expect that the hon. Gentleman can think of several situations in which the rapid spread of disease has had serious consequences for business. Does he accept that there are issues in relation to a variety of statistics other than basic economic statistics which need to be handled?

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

The right hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly reasonable point. Market-sensitive data do not have to be core economic data. However, requests for the pre-release of data could be made in individual cases and it would be for the professionals to judge the reasonableness of such requests. We are talking about statistics in general, of which there are thousands. Only a handful of them could possibly satisfy those criteria.

Even if there is a good case for pre-release access not only of market-sensitive data but more generally, why do the Government believe that it is uniquely necessary to have such long periods in the UK? I do not understand what the arguments are. British officials are recruited from the top echelons of higher education, so we must assume that they are bright people who can think on their feet and react quickly, so it can have nothing to do with that. What is it then about British institutions that requires Britain to be particularly slow in that respect? No arguments for that have been given. What is it about the relationship between Ministers, officials and others that requires us to have an exceptionally long period in which to digest the statistics?

Another theory was put forward by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth—that it is because of the media. The argument is that the British media might conceivably be so mendacious and misleading that we have to have some special protection. I do not know who he was thinking of when he said that. Perhaps it was Rupert Murdoch, but he is active in Australia and other countries, and they seem to be able to cope with fairly robust and demanding time periods for the release of statistics. The Government are putting forward exceedingly weak arguments, in contrast with their position on other matters. I hope that they will pay us the compliment of advancing something a little more solid.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I shall be brief, as I sense that the Committee wants to decide on the amendments and the clause.

I shall deal first with amendments Nos. 26 and 27. I think that the Minister was trying to give me some reassurance that the lists will not be part of the new codification. All that I have to say to him on that issue is that the lists are not in good order—I gave the Committee some examples—but are mixed up. Some officials are named and some are listed by title. There is the issue of having the two separate lists for each set of statistics and the curious arrangement in which some officials are given access through the press office.

The lists are also frequently out of date. If the Minister visits the website and looks at certain statistics, he will see that some of his Treasury officials are listed who have since moved on to other Departments, as are other people who have retired. The lists are not kept in particularly good order. I shall certainly welcome the new codification if it will help us to improve that aspect.

We have had an important debate on amendment No. 21. I am encouraged by the support for it among Opposition Members, and even by some of the Labour Members’ speeches. One can always tell that the Government are on particularly flimsy ground when a Labour Member suddenly decides to break his or her silence and contribute to the debate for the first time with a supportive argument. That is what the hon. Member for Hove attempted to do, but unfortunately, her supportive argument almost gave the game away. She said that the purpose of pre-release—I wrote her words down—is to allow Ministers “to give statistics treatment”. It is precisely the purpose of amendment No. 21 to get away from Ministers giving statistics treatment. Although she said that the Phillis review had not found many examples of abuse, the specific abuse that happened in the summer, when the Prime Minister leaked unemployment figures, came after that review. If the hon. Lady thinks that that was not an abuse, she must explain why the Cabinet Secretary was sent out apologise for it.

Celia Barlow (Labour, Hove)

The hon. Gentleman correctly quotes me, but neglects to continue with the rest of my argument. It was that the treatment was required to deal in a governmental way with the problems that arose. As I stated clearly later in my speech, the media are a minor issue to the Government and to the public compared to the disasters in which statistics are involved and correct guidance is not given by Ministers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West mentioned in respect of Black Wednesday.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

The hon. Lady makes her argument even more supportive—it almost falls into the category of a job application. She mentioned correct guidance and treatment; we will reflect on that. I shall read her speech.

The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West made an interesting suggestion. He was in favour of tightening some of the pre-release arrangements, but he thought that it should be a matter entirely for Parliament rather than the board or Ministers. That is an interesting point. Under the Minister’s proposals, it would be a matter for Parliament, but I think the hon. Gentleman wanted to do it through primary legislation. I ask him to reflect on the inflexibility that might be introduced, as we might have continually to amend such legislation.

My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire made the important point that if we accept what the Minister proposes, we will be trusting the new board to a lesser extent than the ONS in the arrangements that it has already set in place with the Governor of the Bank of England and so on. It is extraordinary that we should set up a new independent board, but say that it is not to be as trusted as the old ONS.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet suggested limiting access to four hours, but she was pressed as to why. I believe that everyone ought to be able to make their case. That is why I want the independent board to make the decision, and why the amendments specify that the board must consult. It should consult the devolved Administrations, and it must consult the Treasury. I would expect the Opposition parties to express their views on the appropriate time limits. I would expect the board to study practice in other developed economies, which seem able to operate such arrangements in a much more rational and scientific way. Indeed, evidence was taken from some of those countries. We might argue about whether it should be 30 minutes or whatever, but the plain fact is that those countries do not have the extent of pre-release that we do. It is for the Minister to try to justify that.

I think that the Minister understands that there is a problem. If he did not, he would not already be suggesting, as he has done this morning, even before he has anything specific to put to Parliament, that there should be shorter periods of access—I wrote that down—and that the arrangements should be tightened generally and codified. He has already proposed that some of the time limits should be changed. The problem, however, is that if he is saying that the arrangements can be determined only by Ministers, it is all the more important that the board and not Ministers should have the final say on what is proposed to Parliament.

I do not accept the Minister’s argument or, indeed, the logic of the position of hon. Member for Hove. If a set of statistics suddenly appears saying that drug use has increased among young people, I do not accept that Ministers should have to respond at that very instant. How can they be in the privileged position of being able immediately to say, “Yup, the problem has increased and here is what we are doing about it”? That does not happen elsewhere with social statistics, and there is no reason for it to happen here.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

In a moment.

In effect, what the Minister is saying is that Ministers should be allowed to continue their practice of issuing statistics with simultaneous spin saying exactly how they are going to deal with a problem. I give way to the Minister. It appears that he is not now going to intervene.

If the problem is genuine, so is the solution. As my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree said, this is a black hole in the Bill, a fatal flaw. If we accept, as the Minister has repeatedly accepted, that there is a problem with the perception of the independence of statistics, and if he is setting out, as he said he was in the Queen’s Speech, to enhance confidence in official statistics, it is nonsense to suggest that the new, independent board cannot be trusted to make such arrangements in the public interest. We want—he wants—the board to be independent. It should be independent in this matter.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I sense that the Committee wants to move on, so I will be brief. We have had a full discussion on the relative merits and the principled basis on which Ministers should propose but Parliament should decide on and finally approve the pre-release arrangements, as opposed to leaving that entirely to the statistics board. Members of the Committee will make up their minds on that.

As to the second major point that the hon. Member for Sevenoaks raised, he is right that the current lists of statistics are not in good order. The new codification will make them clearer and more consistent, and I am glad that he welcomes that.

I say to the hon. Member for Twickenham that we are setting up in the legislation a framework for a new system that can evolve and that needs to evolve in the light of experience. The Government will specifically review the pre-release arrangements 12 months after they start.

I have set out in my 19 January letter to the Committee our approach on the questions raised by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet. That letter is also clear on when I should be able to report further:

“These are important issues requiring careful consideration. I will report to the House as soon as further progress has been made.”

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Dr. Cable, do you wish to move an amendment?

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

Yes, I wish to move amendment No. 84.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

The question is that the amendment be made. All those in favour say aye, and to the contrary no. I think the noes have it.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I do not propose to dwell on the clause—

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

On a point of order, Mr. Olner. During your absence this morning, in our debate on clause 11, the Financial Secretary referred at length to a letter that he had distributed to members of the Committee. I was puzzled by that as I did not recall seeing it, but I did not raise it at the time because I assumed that I was perhaps the only Member who had not had it. I then discovered a copy of the letter in my second post at lunchtime.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. That is not a matter for the Chair.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I did not receive the letter either, but I was able to obtain a copy during the interval between the Committee’s sittings.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. At least the Chairman had a copy.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I want briefly to flag up the issue of devolved statistics, which the Minister could deal with either now or under clause 18. There is a reference to devolved statistics in clause 11(6), and it would be useful to have the Minister’s clarification as to what it means. I do not think that that concept is defined in the Bill, but he may be able to correct me.

As I shall explore in our debates on clause 18, the concept of devolved statistics raises certain concerns about the fragmentation of statistics across the UK. There is consensus on both sides of the House that we want to avoid the fragmentation of statistics and to grapple with and reduce the related problems that have arisen. Subsection (6) seems to insert the concept of devolved statistics, which could cause a problem and exacerbate the fragmentation difficulty that the Bill is partly designed to deal with. I reiterate that I am happy to deal with that point in our debates on clause 18.

I reserved my next point for this part of the debate because it was not really covered by the amendments. Subsection (8) refers to the rules on pre-release access relating to

“statistics in their final form prior to publication.”

Leaving aside for a moment all the discussions that we had this morning about who should decide what the rules are, it seems to me that a key problem with pre-release is the use of information prior to the finalisation of figures circulating around Departments—possibly to be leaked or used to soften up the news agenda in the way that we discussed.

The drafting in subsection (8) seems to suggest that there will be no regulation of the raw data and statistics and their use until the last i has been dotted and the last t has been crossed. Does the Minister expect that the new rules will provide guidance as to how data should be dealt with—who may see it, who may use it and what treatment it may receive—prior to the finalisation of its release for circulation? If there is to be complete freedom to use and circulate data before they reach their final form, that seems to constitute a significant loophole in the rules that the Minister is contemplating.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

May I reciprocate a favour that the hon. Lady extended to me earlier? I think she will find the definition of devolved statistics in clause 63.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I am grateful for that clarification, but it would still be useful to have further clarification from the Minister as to how all this will work and how we will prevent it from leading to further fragmentation problems.

In conclusion, I say only that for the reasons we discussed earlier, the official Opposition would like the opportunity to vote against the clause. We believe that the board and not Ministers should set the rules on pre-release.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

On a point of order, Mr. Olner. Not forthe first time, my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West did my job for me. I was not quick enough to catch your eye. I want to say to the hon. Member for Sevenoaks that I signed the letters on Friday. They went into the system. I shall look into the fact that he and one or two other members of the Committee have not received a copy of the letter. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for that.

Clause 12

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I beg to move amendment No. 142, in clause 12, page 6, line 11, leave out ‘At the request of the appropriate authority’.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 143, in clause 12, page 6, line 12, leave out ‘National’ and insert ‘official’.

No. 144, in clause 12, page 6, line 13, leave out ‘in relation to’ and insert ‘by the authorities responsible for producing’.

No. 184, in clause 12, page 6, line 14, at end insert—

‘(1A) In the absence of a request from the appropriate authority under subsection (1), the Board shall be permitted to assess and determine whether the Code of Practice has been complied with in relation to any official statistic, provided that it consults the authority responsible for producing a relevant statistic before commencing the assessment.’.

No. 145, in clause 12, page 6, leave out lines 15 to 18.

No. 146, in clause 12, page 6, leave out lines 25 to 40.

No. 71, in clause 12, page 6, line 40, at end insert—

‘(9) The Board shall have the authority to initiate an assessment process to designate any set of official statistics as National Statistics.

(10) Before initiating a process under subsection (9), the Board shall inform the appropriate authority.’.

No. 148, in clause 14, page 7, line 17, leave out ‘and 13(1)’.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I propose to be brief on this set of amendments because it mainly raises the same issues about scope that were discussed extensively on Thursday under the first group of amendments to clause 10. Amendments Nos. 142 and 144 are linked to those that were discussed in the earlier groups and would transform the duty of the board to assess particular statistics against the requirements of the code of practice into a duty to assess whether Government Departments are complying with the code.

Amendments Nos. 145, 146 and 148 are consequential changes that are linked with those two amendments of substance. Their effect would broaden the scope of the reform from statistics nominated by Ministers to become national statistics to cover all official statistics. The Opposition strongly support the amendments for reasons that were given at length in the earlier debate. The Minister assured the Committee that he expected the board to promote the code as a code of good practice throughout all Departments. However, that still leaves in tact the two-tier structure for statistics about which many have expressed concerns. It also still leaves Departments free to ignore the code should they so wish in relation to departmental statistics that are not national statistics.

The board would be without the authority to impose and enforce the code against Departments. In the Minister’s words, it would have only an audit function, not a regulatory one. As Dr. Ivan Fellegi, the chief statistician of Canada, said to the Treasury Committee, it is a power to name and shame. In effect, there is little difference between that power and that which the Statistics Commission already has, so for the reasons given in the earlier debate the Opposition strongly support the amendments.

Amendment No. 184 is slightly different. It provides an alternative and less radical way in which to tackle the same worry that we discussed on Thursday. Rather than completely demolish the two-tier structure and apply the code to all Departments, and hence to all official statistics, the amendment would merely remove a Minister’s right to veto the commencement of the assessment process for a statistic to go into the national statistic system and be governed by the full rigour of the reforms that we are debating today.

Although the change is not as comprehensive a change as that proposed under the other amendments, it is a compromise option that would mitigate several of the worries that have been expressed about the Bill. The board would still have only an audit rather than a regulatory function, but at least Ministers would no longer have the right to keep certain departmental statistics out of the national statistics system or be able to determine whether the legislation applied to their statistics in full or not, which would remedy an important flaw in the Bill.

As I said last Thursday, it is difficult to see that the prospect of independent audit and scrutiny will motivate Ministers to opt into the new system. AsDr. Fellegi said to the Treasury Committee, that is more likely to be a disincentive rather than an incentive to opt in.

The Minister told the Committee last week that he expected the proposed system to evolve, but unless the Bill is amended it will evolve only at the pace that Ministers wish. If the amendment is adopted, the board will have the power to drive that process of evolution and determine which numbers are important enough to be brought within the new framework and be subjected to the code of practice as part of the national statistics system.

The Minister’s main counter to my argument was that some statistics were important enough for the code to be applied to them and some were not. The Opposition believe that all official statistics are important enough to merit that treatment, and to merit good practice, integrity and honesty. However, if we cannot persuade the Minister on that point I hope he will consider the issue of who would take the decision about which statistics are important enough to be subjected to the code of practice.

The Minister stated that there was a significant difference between statistics on how many television licences the Department holds, for example, and those on UK jobless figures. The Financial Secretary referred to those two figures as being of a significantly different magnitude and he argued that they should be subjected to different treatment, but who is to say whether statistics on business survival rates or armed forces medical discharge, for example, which are not national statistics, are less important that the cider survey and the monthly statement on bricks, blocks and cement, which at present are national statistics?

The Minister focused strongly on the distinction between important, significant statistics that require the application of the code of practice and what he saw as less significant statistics that did not require the application of the code of practice. At the very least, if that distinction is as important as the Financial Secretary suggested, it should be the board that takes that decision; it should not be left to Ministers as that would leave a significant loophole in the framework set up by the Bill. If the reform is to succeed, the board should make the call on which statistics are important enough to be subject to a code of integrity and impartiality. We hope that the Minister will seriously consider accepting the amendment.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

We are dealing with a sub-set of issues around the bigger question of the two-tier system, and the Minister’s role in deciding which should belong to which category. The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet helpfully suggested a compromise to enable the board to have a role in the process. My amendment, which in some respects is even more of a compromise, is another way of approaching the same problem, but it gives the board a status in the process.

We argue that the board should have the authority to initiate an assessment process to designate any set of official statistics as national statistics. At least that would give the board some access to the problem to challenge ministerial discretion. My amendment is a modest, compromise proposal and I would be surprised if the Minister could advance strong reasons why it is not acceptable. In the spirit of trying to find a middle way between the Government’s proposals and an outright abolition of the two-tier system, I hope that the Minister will accept one or other of the amendments.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

The Opposition seem to be proposing what is, to put it bluntly, an extraordinary arrangement in amendments Nos. 142 to 146 and 148. The proposal appears to be that the board will assess all official statistics against the same code and without specific requests for it to do so. To me and, I hope, to other members of the Committee, that is clearly absurd. It is a certain recipe for rendering the board ineffective. The approach proposed by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet risks drawing the new statistics board into a sea of statistical assessments and approvals.

The statistics produced by several hundred public bodies are already captured in the core definition of official statistics that we have debated and approved in clause 6. The range is vast and the volume is greater still, but often, I have to say, in inverse proportion to their importance. I have been doing a bit of work to try to gauge some of the statistics that, under clause 6, will constitute official statistics, including the sources of those data, which increasingly are new under freedom of information in relation to parliamentary questions.

Examples of what would now be classified as official statistics include, from parliamentary questions, the level and source of departmental income arising from unclaimed lost property in the royal parks, the number of calls made from call centres in the Department for Transport using predictive diallers, how much has been spent by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on dieting and vitamin supplements since 1997 and—this is my favourite—the total amount spent on Ferrero Rocher chocolates in UK embassies.

Andy Reed (Labour, Loughborough)

What was the answer?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

My hon. Friend obviously takes a closer interest in the detail than I do. I am the Minister for statistics and, although I noticed that the question was asked, I did not investigate the answer. He might like to check Hansard for himself on that and do his own research.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I did not ask the question, but as Ferrero Rocher is based in my constituency in the UK, may I say that I think such consumption should be encouraged?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I suspect that there may be a multiple of hits on the Hansard search engine after our proceedings. I welcome the constituency connection that the hon. Gentleman has.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

The Minister is very gracious in giving way again. I think that he has misunderstood the impact of amendments Nos. 142 to 144. They would not require the board to carry out an assessment process in relation to each and every statistic; they would require the board to monitor the statistical activities of the different Departments. That is a different thing.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

With respect to the hon. Lady, I do not misunderstand her argument at all, because she has made it several times. Her fundamental objection is to what she calls two-tier statistics. The case that the range of official statistics that I have set out in my exposition can or should be treated in the same way for the board’s assessment and approval functions is clearly flawed. I hope that at least we can agree on that principle.

However, it is right and it is reasonable, as the hon. Lady has also argued, that we expect all official statistics to be produced with integrity. We have discussed that point in Committee and I confirm that I entirely accept it, for this reason. We have given the board an objective of monitoring the production and publication of all official statistics and commenting on concerns about the quality and good practice in relation to all official statistics. I have also made it clear that I expect that the board will do that in part through promoting the code of practice for national statistics as a code of practice across all official statistics, clearly laying out good practice and standards in the production of statistics for all to follow.

However, the active assessment programme will necessarily bring with it certain resource and operational implications for the board and the data producers. Rightly, we want to concentrate the programme on the core statistics that are the key indicators on which the Government, business and the public rely for an accurate, up-to-date, comprehensive and meaningful description of the United Kingdom in this day and age.

Surely what is important is not that all official statistics should be covered by the assessment and approval function and remit of the board, but that all the most important statistics are. That is why we have said that the established set of about 1,300 national statistics will be subject from the outset to the new system of independent board assessment and approval against the code of practice that the board will draw up and use for such assessments.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Am I misreading, or does my hon. Friend agree that were amendments Nos. 142 to 144 to be accepted, clause 12(1) would read, “The Board must, in accordance with this Part, assess and determine whether the Code of Practice for Official Statistics under section 10 has been complied with by the authorities responsible for producing any official statistics.”?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

My hon. Friend has a keen eye for detail, and in my view he is absolutely right. I started by saying that the practical effects of amendmentsNos. 142 to 146 and amendment No. 148 were precisely as the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet has tried to argue in principle. She does not accept the concept of two-tier statistics—that some statistics are more important than others and should be subject to greater scrutiny. Under our proposals, there will be a rigorous, independent system of assessment and approval. My hon. Friend is right. If the hon. Lady seeks to press the amendments, I shall ask my hon. Friends to resist them.

If we accept that it is right in principle to concentrate on what matters most, that raises the question of where to draw the boundary in practice. This debate is important, because it cuts to the heart of the proposals in the Bill and the concerns that some have expressed.

The nature and number of official statistics is ever-changing and rapidly increasing, and the boundaries are becoming blurred. As I showed with one or two perhaps extreme examples, they are very wide-ranging. We have drawn the scope of official statistics as defined in the Bill extremely wide and flexible on purpose. We did so to reflect our desire that the board should be able to promote and safeguard the quality of the wide and ever-evolving range of data produced and used by the Government.

In seeking to frame a practical and principled argument about where any boundary or definition may be drawn, it is important to understand the changing nature of Government statistics—particularly if one wants to argue that the current set of national statistics is not the right starting point, despite the fact that our system can evolve in future. The changing nature of statistics and the method of their collection means that we no longer use only the traditional collection methods of census and survey. Increasingly, important statistics are derived from administrative and management systems such as those used for the delivery of the benefit or education systems.

Undoubtedly, statistics derived in that way are often important—often more so than the examples that I gave earlier. However, they impose additional and different statistical challenges, given that the primary purpose of the system that produces the data is not itself statistical.

For example, concerns have been expressed, including during our consideration of this Bill, about Home Office statistics. However, as we have heard in recent weeks, apparent statistical problems are in fact a manifestation of other problems that are not statistical. Of course we would want to deal with those statistical issues, but the solutions are primarily administrative or policy-related and not statistical. It would be unrealistic and misleading to suggest otherwise. With the best will in the world, there may be occasions when data derived from management or administrative systems would not and could not meet the standards set out in a code of statistical practice.

The current scope of national statistics in this country is wide and comparable with those of most of our international comparators. However, the additional benefit of the proposed system is that it does have the scope to evolve in the light of experience. Therefore, additional statistics can be put forward for assessment and approval as new national statistics, thus allowing both adaptation to changing statistical demands and an increase in the scope of national statistics.

I will not rehearse our arguments about where this responsibility should lie unless the Committee particularly presses me. I have explained why Ministers must ultimately decide, given their responsibility for their Departments. Equally, I have been clear that the board will be able to comment on which statistics should be national ones.

On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks suggested that if the board had the power to recommend that change, it would be

“a huge comfort to those of us worried about that point. Nobody is arguing that every conceivable line of official statistics should become a national statistic at the whim of the board”.—[Official Report, 8 January 2007; Vol. 455, c. 108.]

I hope that that is still his view now that we are in Committee because I have said not only that I would expect the board to comment on which statistics should be national ones but that this will encourage more statistics into the system. I have been very clear that one of the board’s objectives in discharging its responsibilities is to safeguard the comprehensiveness of the official statistics system, including national statistics. However, in the end, Parliament has the scope and the role under the provisions of this Bill to hold Ministers and the board to account for what they do and do not decide to do.

Therefore, I do expect the board to comment on such matters. I also expect Parliament to take a strong interest in those matters—and the board’s statements on them—and to call Ministers to account when departmental outputs or activities have been commented on, but not recommended, for inclusion as national statistics. I hope that this has been a useful debate and that, in the light of my further clarification and explanation, hon. Members will not press amendment No.142 or seek to move the others in the group.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

The Minister has made some sensible points, but he has not answered the issue raised in amendment No.78. He quite correctly said that the decision as to whether something should be a national or an official statistic must be governed by considerations other than statistical ones, such as administrative factors. That is absolutely true and a perfectly valid point. That is why it is important and quite right to say that one does not need some overarching bureaucratic structure which necessarily involves the board.

However, he then conceded the central point that the board should have a role in making comments. How is that different from our suggestion that the board be given the authority to initiate an assessment process to designate any set of statistics official or national and a pro-active role in selecting cases that seem anomalous. The Minister’s essential point is that the definition will remain fluid and determined by many other factors which are not necessarily statistical so what is the problem with the proposed amendment?

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

The Minister may consider that the Opposition’s proposals are not practical, but they are supported by a range of organisations which contributed to the consultation process. I drew the Committee’s attention to their comments at great length on Thursday afternoon. I do not propose to do that again, but the Committee should listen when organisations such as the Statistics Commission, the Royal Statistical Society and a host of other organisations that responded to the consultation express strong support for the abolition of the two-tier system and for expanding the scope of the code of conduct to official statistics. That is evidence that this is not some hare-brained, impractical scheme. There is no reason why we cannot trust the board to come up with a proportionate and common-sense code of practice that is capable of being applied across the board to the statistical activities of Departments.

Like the Minister, I will not rehearse the arguments that we pursued on Thursday and on Second Reading, but if a statistic is worth producing and relying on, it is worth producing in accordance with the principle of good practice that will be set out in the statutory code at the heart of this reform.

The Minister himself said that there was an issue as to where to draw the boundary between those statistics that are and those that are not sufficiently important to be subjected to the code of practice . We do not believe that that boundary should be drawn at all, for the reasons that I have given. However, the Minister acknowledged that the boundary was crucial and said a few minutes ago that it went to the heart of the matter. Yet it is Ministers who will decide the boundary under the scheme proposed by the Government. If this is really at the heart of the matter and the Bill—I agree with him that it is important—I appeal to the Minister to accept amendment No. 184. Even the amendment tabled by my Liberal colleague, the hon. Member for Twickenham, would do something to mitigate the problem; the boundary would be determined by the board and not by Ministers. That would mean that many of the concerns expressed by people such as Lord Moser, and by the Statistics Commission and the RSS would be answered. It is not ideal, but it is a sensible and defensible compromise.

If the Minister is so enthusiastic about the board’s power to comment on the scope of national statistics and its power to recommend the designation of a statistic as a national statistic, why can he not go that one bit further, give the board real teeth and allow it to require that the assessment process is started? If the Minister wants to claim the place in history that the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire said was there for the taking, I appeal to him to accept amendment No.184 or others in this group.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I feel that I should respond to the hon. Member for Twickenham. We had a principled and detailed debate about the points that he raised today in a sitting last week that he may not have attended. In essence, in a decentralised system the responsibility for submitting statistics for assessment must lie with the Departments. My argument is that Ministers are responsible for making policy and arguably, as such, are better placed to know which statistics are most critical for the development and delivery of that policy. Ministers are also responsible and accountable for allocating and managing resources in their Department, including those devoted to statistical production. Principally, I see those as policy and resource decisions and, therefore, as more appropriate matters for Ministers than for the statistics board. I hope that that is helpful to the hon. Gentleman and does not try the patience of the Committee too much.

I am still not persuaded by the arguments made by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet. No matter how many representations she has received in support of them, they are not necessarily right or practical. I urge my hon. Friends to resist them.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. Which amendments is the hon. Lady prepared to withdraw and which does she wish to press to a vote?

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I would be grateful if theCommittee were able to vote on amendments Nos. 142 and 184.

Clause 13

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

This is the first of a series of clauses that provide important supplementary functions for the statistics board. The others—clauses 14 to 17—deal with programmes of assessment, principles and procedures, lists of national statistics and transitional provisions. Clause 13 provides for the reassessment of statistics, designated as national statistics under the previous clause, in order to determine whether they continue to comply with the code of practice. Thereafter, their designation as national statistics can be either confirmed or cancelled. This process will apply either because the statistics have been assessed previously by the board as meeting the code or because they are national statistics at the commencement of the new system. I suspect and hope that there will be rather less contention around this and some of the subsequent clauses, but nevertheless it is important and I commend it to the Committee.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I would like to ask my hon. Friend about the time frame for clauses 13 to 15, because I do not see one. Clause 16 refers to “once every financial year”, and clause 17 contains transitional provisions for the old regime to continue until the new one is in place, but clauses 13 and, as I read them, 14 and 15, set no time limit on the board and could leave us struggling on under the old regime indefinitely. That seems rather unsatisfactory. Has he thought about including a time limit in the clauses to ensure that the board carries out its functions within, for example, a year of the Act receiving Royal Assent?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

My hon. Friend is right. It would be undesirable and unacceptable for the transitional period to struggle on for a long time. I explained earlier that I want to move quickly as the legislation proceeds through Parliament and to appoint a chairman of the shadow board. With the good will of those who want the system to work, I expect and hope that the board will be up and running without undue delay. This will be one of its core functions and something to which I expect it to give its attention early on. In principle, he might have put his finger on a potential problem, but in practice I do not share his concerns. Clearly, a fixed and precise timetable is difficult to legislate for. It will depend on the board, which will in many ways determine the pace of progress.

Clause 18

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

I beg to move amendment No. 124, in clause 18, page 8, line 15, leave out “itself”.

This might be a purely semantic grappling point that need not detain us for long. However, I was struck by the fact that, throughout, the Bill makes reference to, “the board may”, or “the board must”, or “the board shall”, or “the board is”, but suddenly the parliamentary draftsman got excited and wrote, the “board may itself produce”. It may just be purely a coincidence and a case of the parliamentary draftsman getting a bit bored and feeling the need for a little variety, but it seems rather pointless. If there should be any point of emphasis, this is probably not the place to put it. The thrust of the Bill is that the board will be responsible not just for oversight but for production of statistics. As has been explained, that will operate through Chinese walls and it will be the National Statistician who carries out the production. So this is a very odd place to emphasise the board’s role.

On that probably extremely pedantic little point of redrafting, perhaps we might achieve some results with the Government on this issue, and I ask the Minister whether he will ask the parliamentary draftsman to think again.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

All the scrutiny to which the Committee is subjecting the Bill is important, and I would not brand it as pedantic in any respect.

I am not sure that the amendment would make a significant difference to the clause, although I would say that it would make it a little less clear, rather than clearer. The intention behind the drafting of this particular point in the clause is to make it clear that, unlike the preceding clauses, it is about statistics that the board produces rather than the statistics produced by other organisations, such as Departments, which the board monitors. I think that the wording in the Bill probably helps to preserve that clarity, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not feel it necessary to press the matter to a vote.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

Will the Minister give way?

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Will the Minister give way?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I am not at all surprised that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West wishes to intervene on that point, but I shall give way first to the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire.

David Gauke (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

One explanation is that perhaps the parliamentary draftsman shared the surprise of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West and other observers that the board itself has a role both in scrutinising and in producing statistics.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I am not sure whether Mrs. Gauke has been studying the detailed provisions of the Bill, but that is an interesting thesis.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

I know that we do not wish to be detained too much on this, but can my hon. Friend perhaps say why the word “itself” does not appear in subsection (2), making it read, “The Board may itself at any time publish”? If he is right that the inclusion of “itself” in subsection (1) leads to greater emphasis and greater clarity, surely that greater emphasis and greater clarity—which I must say to him that I doubt—would also be needed in subsection (2).

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I am slightly surprised by my hon. Friend. As I have explained, in subsection (1), clearly the emphasis on “itself” is to try to make clear the distinction between statistics produced elsewhere and statistics produced under the aegis of the board, in other words by the current Office for National Statistics. Clearly the publication of information or advice given regarding statistics produced under subsection (1) does not require that construction in order to give the board the freedom and the remit to do so.

Dr. Cable rose—

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. Before I call Dr. Cable, I would like to remind hon. Members that it is unusual for amendments that have been grouped to be selected for a separate Division, as happened in the last grouping. Members should indicate during their remarks if they wish to have a separate Division on a grouped amendment, which may then be moved formally. The Member moving the lead amendment should also be clear in winding up as to whether they wish to withdraw or press the amendment.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

Thank you for that advice, Mr. Olner. I think that my English grammar is a bit better than my knowledge of parliamentary procedure, so I will persist with the point that I am trying to make.

I would have thought that the Government might have rolled over easily on this issue, but I can see that one should never assume anything. If it is the Government’s intention to do what the Minister wants, surely the sentence should read, “The Board may produce and publish its own statistics”. Is that not the point that he is trying to make? Surely, if we are in the business of trying to improve the language, that would be the way to do it.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

Would the words that the hon. Gentleman has just used imply that the board could then publish only statistics that it owned?

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

Indeed, that might create problems of its own. I should not indulge in improvised drafting, but the drafting as it stands certainly does not achieve the objective that the Minister said it was designed to achieve. I have no intention of pushing the amendment to a vote, as the issue is not a major point of substance and policy, but the Government should perhaps be a little flexible and think again.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

If the hon. Gentleman reads the whole clause again, he may find the Financial Secretary a little more forthcoming. The clause says:

“The Board may itself produce and publish statistics relating to any matter”,

and so on. It then says that the board cannot do that for Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland without consent, but no consent is required by the Treasury for the board to produce statistics on any other matter, including economic matters. With that pointed out, the Financial Secretary might look a little more kindly on redrafting the clause.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

The clause provides a welcome opportunity to address matters relating to devolution and the problems that have arisen from the fragmentation of statistics across the UK. The reason for that is the fact that subsections (3) to (5) place limits on the board’s activities in relation to so-called devolved statistics, to which the hon. Member for Dundee, East just referred.

The Opposition made it plain earlier that we believe that the functions set out in the clause should be those of the National Statistician and not the board. We have debated that at length already and we do not need to go back over the groundwork. However, just to reprise that, it would be useful if the Minister could clarify whether “board” in the clause is taken to include what is now the ONS. That is important in addressing the devolution issues, because under the clause it seems as if the ONS will be prevented from producing so-called devolved statistics without the permission of the relevant devolved Administration. No doubt the Minister will correct me if I have misinterpreted it, but that seems to be how the clause works.

That looks like an element of political control, which goes against the thrust of giving independence to statistical services and to the board. If a Minister in a devolved Administration felt, for example, that a statistic might expose policy failures on their part, the clause would presumably enable him or her to bar the ONS from collecting it. There seems to be no comparable restriction for English statistics. The clause seems to involve a reduced level of independence for statistics relating to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I would welcome the Minister’s clarification of whether I have understood the clause correctly, and if so, of what the justification for that is.

Another potential undesirable consequence of subsections (3) to (5) is the further fragmentation of statistics across the UK, which leads to the general issue that I should like to address. The proposed application of the new framework across the devolved Administrations is welcome—it is right that the areas where government is devolved should produce statistics that reflect their own local circumstances and meet the needs of local users—but as the Treasury Committee pointed out:

“Equally important...is that the basic data which is needed at UK level is capable of being compiled in a coherent form across the administrations, in order to ensure that there is a set of UK-wide numbers, that this allows users to compare and contrast the impact of policies in different parts of the UK”.

Many expressed concern during the consultation that it was becoming more and more difficult to obtain statistical data that covered the whole of the UK. That fragmentation of statistics makes it more difficult to assess the effects of devolution. Simon Briscoe, statistics editor of the Financial Times, put the problem as follows in his evidence to the Treasury Committee:

“Where there are policy areas that a devolved assembly has decided to take a different policy stance, say Scotland from England, I think it is a shame that we do not have harmonised data so that we can actually see what the impact of the different policies are. If we cannot see the results of that little bit of experimentation, then nobody is going to be any the wiser about which policies were best.”

An inability to compare figures across the country on issues as significant as health, housing and poverty makes it more difficult to develop coherent evidence-based policies and programmes to tackle them. As the Treasury Committee pointed out, difficulties in producing consistent UK-wide statistics could also jeopardise the UK’s ability to meet its international obligations on statistics. The Royal Statistical Society described the problem as “serious and worsening”.

The evidence seems to suggest that the problem did not start with devolution but may have been intensified or brought into sharper focus by that process. Particular concern has been expressed by the Statistics User Forum, which described the lack of coherent UK-wide statistics as

“a long-standing problem that is not improving. It is a major source of frustration for professional users and confusion for non-professional users.”

The forum’s chairman, Mr. Keith Dugmore, pointed out to the Treasury Committee that locations about which it is difficult to obtain data might lose out on inward investment as companies opt for areas where they can easily get hold of the information that they want. He expressed the user community’s frustration when he said:

“There are people out there who are the actual customers and users of statistics saying, ‘Why on earth can I not grab the same thing for Northern Ireland as I can for Devon and Cornwall or wherever?’”

He pointed out that the compilation of different indices of deprivation in different areas of the country meant that one could not, for example, determine whether poverty was more serious in Glasgow or in the east end of London.

Those anxieties were echoed recently by Dr. Kadhem Jallab, head of Tyne and Wear Research and Information. In consultation during the run-up to the Bill, he said:

“Devolution obviously risks further disintegration of comparability...The index of deprivation in England is not directly comparable with that in Scotland. These effects make the comparison of Tyne and Wear with Glasgow and Edinburgh impossible.”

Dr. Jallab went on to note that work on housing market areas in the north-east based on migration patterns from the census had been compromised by the different approaches taken on census statistics in Scotland and England.

Particular problems arose in relation to the 2001 census. I refer again to Simon Briscoe’s evidence to the Treasury Committee. He felt that the ONS had been so enfeebled by the 2001 process that it had managed to produce only a limited set of UK-wide figures. For other census data, users had to

“fumble around on three different websites to try and cobble together a figure for the UK”.

Alison Macfarlane, professor of perinatal health at City university, told the Committee how she tried to produce figures for what she described as a very basic set of maternity indicators. She said:

“I had gone round the houses liaising with people in four countries and sent in data derived from 18 separate data sets. Even then, there were a number of holes.”

Professor Macfarlane called for the ONS to have a much stronger co-ordinating role.

It seems that at present there is a political imbalance. The pull from devolved Administrations to localise the census is stronger than the counterweight of a few statisticians in London who want a consistent approach across the country. The chairman of the RSS’s national statistics working party, John Pullinger, who was heavily involved in the 2001 census, described how such problems arose:

“A census is clearly a very sensitive topic. The Scottish Parliament decided to make some changes. That was not in itself a problem, but when the Welsh Assembly saw that the Scottish Parliament had made some changes, they wanted some changes, and the thing began to fragment because the forces pulling it apart were stronger than Pullinger sitting in a room in Whitehall with his counterparts. They were stronger and we were unable to pull it together, so in fact we had three different censuses.”

Mr. Pullinger identified a key problem for this Committee to consider. We clearly need to produce a common core of statistics across the UK. The question is how to provide the counterweight to the natural pull away from the centre. How can we give the board or the National Statistician the authority to provide it?

I remind the Minister that he still has a chance to change his mind and vote in favour of amendment No. 98 to give the National Statistician a formal duty to promote consistency of statistics across the UK. We have debated it but are yet to vote on it, and I hope we will have a chance to do so. That would have provided an important boost to the authority of the National Statistician.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I am trying to follow the hon. Lady’s logic, but she is rattling through the briefing in front of her. She seems to be talking about a tension between consistency of national statistics and issues that are of interest in a devolved system. I would point out that in some circumstances there may be devolved interest in the regions of England, as well as in Wales or Scotland. However, does the hon. Lady not realise that information about use of the Welsh language and such matters gained through the census is extremely important, not only for the National Assembly for Wales, but for local authorities in Wales? Does she not accept that there needs to be, not a tension or conflict between central consistency and devolved Administrations, but a complementarity of information that respects the differences within the United Kingdom? That is part of the way in which we maintain its unity.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I agree that the ideal is to have complementary statistics. Nothing that I have said should be taken to indicate that the devolved Administrations or organisations within areas that have devolved government should not be producing their own statistics on certain matters. However, it is important to have a core of statistics that are compiled in the same way across the United Kingdom. Otherwise, it will be difficult to compare different local areas, which will lose out as a result.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

The hon. Lady suggests that they should produce their own statistics, but it would be a complete nonsense when the census is going on for the sort of information that, for example, the Welsh Assembly and local government in Wales require not to be collected as part of that process. It would be a ridiculous waste of money not to deal with it in the way that Members of this House have argued: by a simple complementarity of information that is collected.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I agree that it is important not to have centralisation across the board. There is no reason that collection cannot take place in parallel where local statistics are collected alongside national statistics. However, that does not detract from the importance of securing at least a series of core indicators with which one can compare policies and situations in different parts of the United Kingdom according to the same criteria.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Given the content of clause 18(1), is the hon. Lady speaking in favour of the clause standing part of the Bill?

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I am using the opportunity to explore concerns in relation to devolution. I do not anticipate that the Opposition will choose to vote against clause 18 standing part, but it was important to air the arguments, because they are of concern.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

Perhaps the hon. Lady can help us by putting her brief on one side and giving us just the Janet and John version. What is she asking for?

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I am asking for recognition of the importance of having a core set of statistics that are consistent across the United Kingdom.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

I understand what the hon. Lady is saying, and I have some sympathy. Does she want us to be able to measure accurately, for example, public spending per head between the various regions of England and parts of Scotland? Is that the sort of thing that she wants?

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I can see that there would be advantages in having consistent statistics to give an indication of levels of spending in different parts of the country.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

That is interesting, and the hon. Lady is asking for a uniform set of statistics to measure it. Water in Scotland is in the public sector, while water in England is in the private sector; although water supply is fully funded by the taxpayer through the bills, it is deemed to be public expenditure in England but not in Scotland. There is a massive disparity in public sector accounts of spending per head on that basis alone. How does one collect uniform statistics that give a meaningful comparison given those different systems?

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

It will not be possible to collect uniform statistics on everything throughout the United Kingdom, and it is not necessary to do so. However, there should be a core of statistics that, I hope, is consistent across the United Kingdom.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I must tell the hon. Lady that if Janet and John were reading the book, they would still be confused about her request. I have heard nobody suggest that there should not be a core of statistics enabling comparisons from region to region, country to country and so on. However, does she suggest that in the interests of the centralised consistency that she seeks, we should collect statistics on the speaking of Welsh in north-east England? It might be interesting, but the resources would not be well devoted to that.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

No, I am not saying that. As I have said on several occasions, statistics that are relevant to some areas of the United Kingdom will not be relevant to others. I do not believe that the issue is controversial for the parties. The Minister recognises the importance of dealing with the problem of the fragmentation of statistics. That is why he has worked hard to bring the devolved Administrations into the new framework.

I hope that the Bill will help to remedy the problems to which I have adverted. I look forward to the Minister’s reassurance that the Bill will tackle fragmentation to ensure that we can compare poverty levels in Glasgow, in Tyne and Wear and in the east end of London, for example. That is an important function of our statistical services, and that is why it is important that the Bill reduces fragmentation and ensures that there is consistency between key statistics throughout the United Kingdom.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

I happen to agree with the hon. Lady about the fragmentation of what I call British statistics, at least in so far as ensuring their quality, accuracy and completeness, which is uniformly first class throughout all statistics produced by the nations, the provinces and the UK as a whole. It is also correct that there must be UK data, not least to fulfil international obligations. However, there must not and there cannot be uniformity for the sake of it. Should a devolved Administration require statistics in a form that they define, it would be a matter for them alone, so long as the statistics, official or national, fulfilled all other criteria set by the board, particularly on quality, completeness and on-time delivery.

The hon. Lady suggested that a devolved Administration may restrict or stop the calculation of a statistic that shows them in a poor light. However, given the absence of accurate data, particularly economic data, not only in the UK, England and parts of England, but in Scotland, it is far more likely that the Administration would seek to commission the information that they required. The information that they may not consent to is information or statistics that they presumably do not consider necessary to set policy priorities, to measure the success or failure of policies and so on.

We know from previous sittings that the Treasury controls the appointment to and size of the board, and that the Treasury can restrict the board’s direction in the case of failure, which we will come to. The Treasury can also restrict the disclosure of information to and from the board, particularly if the devolved Administrations request or demand it. The clause is a useful safeguard to ensure that Administrations cannot have foisted upon them information that they consider to be of no value. However, the provision relates only to fully devolved statistics. State-wide statistics, which the hon. Lady wants for the purposes of comparison, will of course be provided because they are UK statistics.

I am not sure what we heard from the hon. Lady, but the clause offers a degree of protection against Administrations becoming burdened with statistics for which they have little or no use. Other clauses allow them to direct the production of statistics that they need. The hon. Lady’s fears are unfounded. Given the Treasury’s command and control of other parts of the process, which we have discussed, I would have thought that she would have been delighted to see that at least one part of the process is fully in the control of the Assembly in Wales, the Parliament in Scotland and the Administration in Northern Ireland.

Brian H Donohoe (Labour, Central Ayrshire)

With regard to the Scottish Parliament, if the board were to produce statistics that showed taxpayers south of the border that the Barnett formula was favourable to those north of the border, would the hon. Gentleman want to expose that to scrutiny?

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

I am not sure why any politician would not like scrutiny of the facts. I would be delighted for a statistic to show what we already know, which is that the Barnett squeeze is reducing the amount of money per head in Scotland, year on year.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. Stick to the Bill, please.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

I am being admonished, but I was teased into it by the hon. Gentleman. [ Interruption.] Well, it was such an easy target.

The clause is to be welcomed, because it allows the devolved Administrations at least a little control, if only in stopping unnecessary demands for unnecessary statistics and freeing up more time for the statisticians, the board and others to provide new information that is needed.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet used the opportunity given by the discussion of the clause to register a few concerns about the nature of devolved statistics and comparability across the United Kingdom, and she was right to do so. We share her concerns, which was clear from the consultation and the way in which we framed the Bill. The decision of the devolved Administrations to participate fully in the provisions of the Bill goes some way to addressing those concerns.

Under the devolution settlement, devolved Administrations have responsibility for devolved matters such as education, health and local economic development. That includes the production of statistics relating to those matters, such as statistics on pupil numbers, cancer operations and local planning applications. Devolved statistical production predates by some way the devolution settlement and Simon Briscoe’s comments in the Financial Times. Wales, Northern Ireland and particularly Scotland have different legal, political and education systems, which leads to the production of relevant statistics. That has meant that direct comparability in those areas has been difficult for some time.

Given the devolution settlement and our determination not to open it up wider with this Bill, it is right that the Board should obtain the consent of the relevant devolved Administrations to produce statistics on devolved matters. The clause allows the board to produce and publish statistics on any UK matter. It is important that the board should continue to do so, not least because we are concerned to aid the coherence of UK statistics, as the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet is. The Office for National Statistics compendium “Social Trends”covers both devolved and non-devolved statistics to give a definitive overview of the United Kingdom. Where it impinges on devolved statistics, it is right that consent is obtained from the Administrations.

The hon. Lady cited some of the technical and practical difficulties that analysts and researchers had in bringing together statistics from devolved sources. Those concerns were raised during the consultation, and we are as keen as she is to deal with that issue. She urged me to confirm, as I think I already have, that I believe that the Bill will be helpful because the devolved Administrations have decided to participate fully. That means that the board will have a responsibility in its remit to monitor and report on statistics in the devolved Administrations.

As I have said, the Government are committed to working with the devolved Administrations to review what is already in place as non-legislative agreements, including the formal concordat to try to improve the degree of consistency and coherence. I hope that this brief debate has been useful to the hon. Lady and that she will agree to the clause standing part of the Bill.

Clause 19

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I beg to move amendment No. 150, in clause 19, page 8, line 37, leave out ‘the consent’ and insert ‘consulting’.

I tabled this probing amendment to explore the transfer of further power over the retail prices index from the Chancellor to the board. The progress in the direction of transferring power is welcome, but it would be useful for the Committee to consider whether the powers that are retained by the Chancellor under clause 19 are necessary. We want to probe the Government’s reasons for retaining the Chancellor’s power to veto measures that constitute a fundamental change in the RPI, which would be materially detrimental to the interests of the relevant index-linked gilt-edged securities.

Clearly, one has to approach the matter with great caution. The Library note on the Bill tells us that the eight gilts relevant to our discussion have an outstanding value of some £90.8 billion. Of course, the Opposition would not wish any measure to be put in place that would require the Government suddenly and unexpectedly to have to repay £90.8 billion, because that would cause significant problems in terms of the public finances and market volatility, but the question arises whether the retention of the Chancellor’s veto in this context is necessary to prevent the risk from materialising. That is why I tabled the amendment, which would essentially transform the Chancellor’s power to veto a proposed change into a right merely to be consulted about the change after a decision has been made by the Bank of England and the board.

The thrust of the reform that the Government say that they wish to make involves trusting the board and the National Statistician to make hugely important, sensitive decisions that determine the flow of millions of pounds in capital markets every day. If they can be trusted to make other key decisions about the definition of crucial economic indices, we are interested to hear more from the Government about why they feel that those people cannot be trusted in total to make the decisions on the retail prices index. The Royal Statistical Society, for example, has said that given the importance of the RPI it is crucial to remove it from political control. We have at least to consider the arguments to see whether the transfer of power from the Chancellor to the board should be total.

If the amendment were made, there would still be a triple safeguard to prevent an irresponsible decision that would trigger automatic redemption from being made. Not only would the board have to be convinced that the change was needed, but the Bank of England would have to give its view of whether the proposal would constitute a fundamental change. Of course, the Chancellor would also have to be consulted.

The Treasury Committee has considered the matter over a number of years and it could find no other country in the world where the Executive retained control over definitional matters in relation to the inflation index. We should like the Government to give further justification for why they wish to make an exception, albeit one that is now more limited than in the past, because the Chancellor’s continuing role involves an exception—albeit one more limited in scope than previously. The concern is particularly significant in a month when inflation has climbed to its highest level for 15 years. At a time of rising inflation it is more important than ever to take measures to rebuild the credibility of inflation indices, which many now worry do not reflect the real cost of living. Given the pivotal importance of inflation for economic stability and policy and for families, there is surely an argument that the independent structures being set up in the Bill should take over full responsibility for the definition of the RPI and its derivatives.

Celia Barlow (Labour, Hove)

The hon. Lady mentioned the necessity of a safeguard. Would it not be more appropriate if that safeguard were the Chancellor acting as an arbiter between the board and the Bank, given that that has been his traditional responsibility and index-linked gilts are part of our national borrowing?

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

There are arguments on both sides of the debate, which is why the amendment is probing. One of our concerns is that the Chancellor’s role in relation to the Bank of England is not necessarily transparent and his continued involvement could jeopardise public trust. When decisions are taken on changes to the methodology of the RPI, people could suspect political motivation even when there is none. I shall come on to that point in more detail.

The Treasury Committee first called for the removal of the Chancellor’s powers in relation to the RPI in 1998 and it set out its concerns in three reports—in 1998, 2000 and July 2006. The move to answer the Committee’s concern has been slow in coming. Clear tensions have emerged in the current RPI regime, which splits responsibility between the National Statistician and the Chancellor. Under the current rules, the National Statistician is responsible for the methodology used to compile the index, while the Chancellor covers its scope and definition.

That split responsibility caused concern when a move was made in February 2004 to incorporate hedonic regression methods of quality adjustment for a limited set of goods. It was intended to adjust more accurately for the impact of quality changes in the price of certain foods. There was a problem with communication, which again goes to the issue of trust. The ONS covered the matter briefly in its standard monthly press release; on the same day the Treasury issued a press release announcing that the National Statistician had made changes to the methodology of the RPI and that the Bank of England had indicated that they did not represent a fundamental change to the index. The debt management office had given holders of gilts early warning of the prospective changes, but that did not seem to filter through to a wider audience. The Statistics Commission criticised the way in which the news was disclosed and said that the ONS should have issued a separate press release to warn people of the changes and separate the decision from the Chancellor.

Such problems will clearly be mitigated by clause 11, but similar communication difficulties might arise in relation to the residual functions that the clause leaves with the Chancellor. There is an important lesson on credibility to be learned from the hedonics controversy. In examining it, the Statistics Commission noted that disquiet had been expressed that the change had been politically motivated, which was the problem I referred to in response to the intervention by the hon. Member for Hove. The commission noted that there had been speculation whether the developments flowing from the shift to hedonics had been released in small packages to avoid triggering gilt redemption clauses.

I must make it clear that the commission concluded that the changes were not politically motivated and that they were objectively justifiable, but that the Chancellor’s continuing role had led some to look for political motives behind the change. It concluded that more transparency and information was required to reassure the public about the governance of the RPI. It went on to state:

“We believe that there is a strong case for going further than this and looking again at the Chancellor’s special role in respect of the RPI.

The Commission is not persuaded that there is public benefit in treating the RPI differently from other key statistics.

We believe that this tends to undermine confidence that the construction of the index is handled in an impartial way.

It is therefore also likely to have presentational disadvantages through the suspicion it engenders.

In short, the current arrangements create the worst of all possible outcomes.”

What concerns me—I would like to hear the Minister’s views—is the suspicion that changes to the index are politically motivated. That suspicion was identified by the commission as a source of concern and it could persist, even with the limited powers retained by the Chancellor.

The suspicion could be fuelled by the position of the RPI advisory committee. For many years, that committee of learned experts played a role as a guardian of the RPI. The committee provided a degree of transparency and independence in a system where the Chancellor had a unique role in relation to a hugely important index. However, that transparency has been lost since the current Chancellor took over at No. 11 because the committee has not met. It can only be convened at the request of the Chancellor and he has chosen not to do so.

That is one of the reasons why disquiet has been and continues to be expressed at the Chancellor’s role in relation to RPI, even if the changes go through. It would be interesting to hear the Minister confirm that the committee has not met since 1994, and it would be useful if he clarified whether he envisages a continuing role for the committee in dealing with the problems and the concerns about the Chancellor’s role in relation to RPI. Will it continue, for example, as an adviser to the board or the National Statistician, rather than to the Chancellor?

In conclusion, the Committee will be well aware that even the smallest changes to the index can save the Chancellor many millions of pounds in benefit and interest payments. It is vital that we get the RPI arrangements absolutely right, which is why the Opposition are seeking a degree of further clarification from the Minister about how the residual powers retained for the Chancellor will work and how they can be justified.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Before I call Rob Marris, for the convenience of Members it may be helpful to say that I do not allow to intend a separate debate on clause stand part. Members wishing to speak on this subject may therefore want to join the debate on amendment No. 150.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

Were the amendment not a probing one, I would certainly urge my colleagues to vote against it if it were to be pressed. On a minor level, it is not properly worded because it should have removed the word “of” as well, but on a more major level, the amendment is completely potty. It is potty for some of the reasons adverted to, but not made absolutely clear by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet in a very long speech. The matter dates back to about the year of the hon. Lady’s birth. Many older members of the Committee will remember, during the run on the pound and subsequent devaluation in 1967, the phrase used by the then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson: “the gnomes of Zurich”. As a result, legislation was passed in 1968 for index-linked gilts. The index linking is important and it carried on until 2002.

Labour Members, if not Opposition Members, will remember that the under the Conservative Governments who were in office for two thirds of the period between the passing of the 1968 Act and the changes of 2002, and in particular under the Government of John Major, the national debt doubled. Under the present Government, until very recently, we have been paying it off. The national debt is considerably lower than the one we inherited in 1997, and unlike the situation under the Conservative Government, we have something to show for it.

What would happen if the amendment were to be passed? It would take the matter of redemption out of the hands of any Government. The hon. Lady adverted to one point but did not make it entirely clear. At this point, I shall refer to the explanatory notes, which will please all hon. Members. Stockholders, if there is a change in the RPI calculation, have the right to require the Government to redeem the stock. That is the£90 billion in the Library note to which the hon. Lady referred. That could happen overnight under the terms of those gilts, and it would have, as the explanatory notes put it:

“a significant impact on financial markets and potentially on public finances.”

If 90 billion quid became repayable by the Treasury overnight, it would have to rush off to the money markets to try to borrow another £90 billion, which would cause chaos and be most undesirable. That is why, as the Bill is worded and in contradistinction to the amendment, and because of the delicate nature of that power and the overhang from previous years of Conservative borrowing, it leaves the matter ultimately with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Given that the stocks are due for redemption between 2009 and 2030 and that the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) hopes—vainly—to be Chancellor of the Exchequer during that period, I say to the hon. Lady that I suspect her hon. Friend would be absolutely horrified if such an amendment was accepted.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

The hon. Gentleman refers to the point at which the relevant securities will be redeemed. Is there an argument for some kind of limitation on the Chancellor’s residual role, to ensure that it comes to an end when the relevant gilts are no longer in existence?

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

That could be, but it is not until 2030. Few here today will still be Members of the House then.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

We should bear in mind that statistics Bills come round only once every 60 years.

Rob Marris (Labour, Wolverhampton South West)

They may come round more frequently, as all good things do, under a Labour Government.

It goes on to 2030; we do not need to worry about introducing a sunset clause. It would be completely potty if the amendment were to get anywhere near causing a vote, and I suspect that the shadow Chancellor would agree.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

I do not want to speak to the amendment; I have a question about the clause. It may stem from ignorance on my part. I can understand why it is important to have a clause on the index of inflation; it is probably the most crucial of all economic indicators. It links to so many other things, including benefit indexation and index-linked gilts.

My question relates to the fact that we have two measures of inflation—the CPI and the RPI. The CPI is no less important because it is the indicator that the Bank of England uses when setting interest rates. It is therefore just as important as the RPI. Why is there no comparable statement of the process safeguarding the integrity and the independence of CPI calculations? The answer in part is that the CPI is a European index, and people no doubt place their trust in the Commission as the ultimate repository of statistical honesty, and we do not need a European index to be embodied in British legislation.

However, it is a practical point. The CPI is currently being reviewed in order to take account of the fact that it does not capture housing costs. There is some discussion about the fact that the CPI might be adapted separately for the UK in order to capture housing costs ahead of any change made by EUROSTAT. Who safeguards the process by which the CPI, as well as the RPI, is compiled? Has it been omitted from legislation for good reasons or simply because no one thought it was necessary to do so? It is not a challenge to the provisions of the clause; it is simply a question about the thinking behind its drafting.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

Let me start by thanking the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet for the welcome that she gave to the Chancellor’s transferring his essential powers over the RPI to the board. I know that the Treasury Committee and others have followed it closely and encouraged my right hon. Friend to do so for some time. I am glad that we can do so. We will have the right provisions to protect essential public finance interests and the stability of the financial markets, as I shall explain later.

Essentially, the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet invites me to explain the peculiarity of the UK’s debt market, which lies behind the role that we propose for the Chancellor. As the Committee knows, all giltsare issued under a prospectus, and in the UK the prospectus of certain index-linked gilts contains the right for the holders of those gilts to redeem them early at par, or face value, under certain circumstances relating to changes in the construction of the retail prices index.

The hon. Lady said that it seems that no other country has such provisions as those that we propose. That is because the prospectuses for index-linked gilts issued in other countries do not contain the obligation for the Governments of those countries to redeem those gilts in such specific circumstances.

Were the clause to be triggered at a time when gilts were trading below face value, there could be real and severe consequences to the financial and debt markets and to public finances, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West has pointed out. That is why clause 19 provides that before the board makes any changes to the RPI it must consult not the Chancellor but the Bank of England about whether the change constitutes a fundamental change in the index that would be materially detrimental to the interests of the holders of the relevant index-linked gilts—in other words, whether it is likely to trigger the clause in those prospectuses. If, and only if, the Bank of England is of the opinion that the change would be materially detrimental, the board must obtain the Chancellor’s consent to that change. Should the Bank determine that the change is not fundamental or materially detrimental to the holders of certain index-linked gilts, the Chancellor will play no part in making any proposed changes.

The hon. Lady’s amendment proposes that in the narrow and specifically defined circumstances that I have just mentioned, consultation with the Chancellor would be required rather than consent. I do not accept the amendment—I hope that she will accept my argument—because it does not provide adequate protection against the possible consequences for the public finances or the severe disruption of an orderly gilts and wider financial market.

I want to give an indication of the scale of the potential consequences. This is hypothetical, but nevertheless we might find circumstances in which it could be the case. If the Government had to redeem the index-linked gilts, that would lead to large-scale refinancing of up to £91 billion of additional and unplanned gilts. To put that in perspective, it is three times the average annual gilt issue, which stands at about £31 billion. There could also be real fiscal costs, as the hon. Lady will appreciate, principally because it is likely that new gilts would need to be issued at higher yields than those being replaced. That could lead, we calculate, to additional fiscal costs of up to an average of £0.9 billion a year for the financial years through to 2030-31. That is why it is crucial that the Chancellor, as the Minister who is democratically accountable in the end for public finances, retains the ability to prevent such a potentially costly event. Its possible impact under the circumstances set out in the Bill is on the public finances and the financial markets, not on statistics. It is right, therefore, that the Chancellor should make the final decision rather than the board.

That is not to say that we would expect the role of the Chancellor to be triggered. The Bank of England has not assessed any of the changes to the RPI since 1997 as fundamental and materially detrimental to the holders of the relevant index-linked gilts. Accordingly, even if the provision had been in place since 1997, the Chancellor’s role would never have been triggered.

There was an exchange between the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West about the use of a sunset clause. Although there is not a sunset clause in clause 19, all the gilts to which it refers are due to expire in 2030 so there is de facto an automatic end to the point at which the Chancellor’s role and consent would be required. In relation to the question posed by the hon. Member for Twickenham, it is necessary to have a clause not because the RPI is somehow a statistic that is first among equals and more important than the others but because of the matter of redemption rights in certain index-linked gilts that attach specifically to the retail prices index. That is the purpose of the clause and the reason for it and the safeguards. The hon. Lady said that this is a probing amendment. I hope that she has probed far enough and will accept the unamended clause.

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

The Minister’s comments are useful, as was this discussion. I do not propose to press the amendments to a vote, but I emphasise that the RPI advisory committee could play an important role in enhancing transparency in this whole process, and I remind the Minister of my comments on that. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 20

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

Clauses 20 and 21 are important because they enable the board to undertake valuable activities, currently undertaken by the ONS, that are generally and necessarily widely known. Clause 20 allows the board to provide the range of services that the ONS currently provides. For example, it will be able to provide

“information, advice and technical assistance”

to outside bodies, including statistical agencies in developing countries. Under the clause, the board will also be able to undertake valuable statistical surveys and analyses on behalf of others as the ONS currently does.

Clause 25

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

I beg to move amendment No. 89, page 10, line 25, leave out ‘may’ and insert ‘must’.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

With this it will be convenientto discuss the following amendments: No. 201, page 10, line 25, leave out ‘any or all’ and insert ‘one or more’.

No. 90, page 10, line 31, leave out ‘as soon as possible thereafter’ and insert ‘concurrently’.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

With our amendment, we are once again having a gentle tilt at the parliamentary draftsmen, but the amendment is wholly uncontroversial and I hope that the Government will help us with it. Clause 25 concerns the board’s function in reporting to Parliament. Subsections (1) and (2) set out the procedure for annual reporting, and state that the board “must” produce an annual report and lay it before Parliament and the devolved Assemblies. Subsections (3) and (4) then state, for no obvious reason, that it “may” undertake other reports on matters relating to the exercise of its functions, and leave it open as to whether any such report should be laid before Parliament and the devolved Assemblies. That prompts the question as to what they are preparing such reports for—in a vacuum for their own amusement, perhaps.

The clause is about embedding the reports of the board in parliamentary accountability. What we suggest—changing “may” to “must”—is meant as a drafting improvement. It is certainly intended in that spirit, and I hope that the Minister will take it as such.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I have already discussed amendments Nos. 89 and 201 with the hon. Gentleman. I am grateful to him for raising this matter and for his constructive approach. Under the present drafting of the Bill, reports produced under clause 25(1) must be laid before Parliament and the devolved legislatures. In contrast, under clause 25(3), the board has only an option of laying discretionary reports before Parliament or the devolved legislatures. Looking at the matter, I find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for Twickenham. If the board produces a report under subsection (3) about a matter relating to the exercise of its functions, it must lay the report before one or more of Parliament or the devolved legislatures. That is entirely consistent with the Government’s desire for parliamentary scrutiny to be at the heart of the new arrangements. I will be happy to accept amendments Nos. 89 and 201.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

That is quite overwhelming. In 10 years of dealing with financial, immigration, asylum and benefits legislation in the House, this is the first time that an amendment I have tabled has been accepted. I will add the experience to my CV. I do not know what the courtesies are—perhaps I should send a bunch of flowers or a case of wine to the Treasury. Whatever is required, I appreciate the Minister’s flexibility of mind, and I am glad that we are proceeding on it.

Clause 27

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

I beg to move amendment No. 7, page 11, line 13, leave out ‘, with the consent of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,’.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 8, page 11, line 39, leave out subsection (9).

No. 9, in clause 45, page 21, line 4, leave out subsection (7).

No. 10, in clause 45, page 21, line 7, leave out ‘and the Treasury’.

No. 11, in clause 49, page 24, line 16, leave out subsection (7).

No. 12, in clause 49, page 24, line 19, leave out ‘and the Treasury’.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

Clause 27 gives the Chancellor of the Exchequer powers to direct the board if it has failed to comply with its objectives or perform any of its functions, placing the office at the heart of the process when things go wrong, which hopefully will be very infrequently. Clause 27(2), (3) and (4) appear to give Scottish and Welsh Ministers, and the Northern Ireland Department of Finance and Personnel, the same powers but, of course, it is not quite the same. Paragraph 116 of the explanatory notes states that devolved Administrations will have powers in “a similar manner”, but not exactly the same powers.

The territorial appointments discussed in a previous sitting are not actually made by the devolved Administrations but by the Treasury following consultations. Scottish Ministers cannot offer disclosure of information to or from the board without consent. Clause 27 operates in the same way for the measures dealing with directions when things go wrong. In a case of failure to comply or perform, the express consent of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not the Treasury, is required before the devolved Administrations can issue directions. I might argue that clause 27 follows a rather sad pattern of Treasury command and control of the size and composition of the board, appointments to the board and so on, but I will not make the case speaking to my amendment. I merely argue that it is completely unnecessary, not least because the direction given by Scottish Ministers in clause 27(2) relates only to Scottish devolved statistics, something in which the Chancellor has, or should have, no locus whatever. My amendments would remove the requirement for the Chancellor’s consent in subsection (2), and subsection (9), which is the catch-all measure that would stop Scottish Ministers exercising the functions of the board in the case of its failure to comply other than with the direct consent of the Chancellor.

I tabled the amendments because the powers given to the Scottish Ministers, even with consent, relate only to devolved statistics, so UK Treasury consent should be wholly unnecessary.

I shall speak briefly to amendments Nos. 9 to 12. Amendments Nos. 9 and 10 to clause 45 would remove the requirement for Treasury consent before Scottish Ministers can authorise the disclosure of information to the board. Amendments Nos. 11 and 12 to clause 49 would remove the same requirement before Scottish Ministers can authorise the disclosure by the board. As with amendments Nos. 7 and 8, the proposals are unnecessary as clause 45 applies only to Scottish public authorities under the control of the Executive, and clause 49 allows information to be disclosed only to public authorities.

The clauses allow the Treasury, quite rightly in UK matters, to direct the board where there has been a failure to comply or to perform and the Treasury has the ability to authorise disclosure to and from the board to public bodies. Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers and the Northern Ireland Departments have a similar provision, but it still requires the consent of the Treasury. It is a parent-child relationship which many will resent. However, the key point is that the only information being discussed is devolved statistics. In terms of disclosure to and from the board it relates only to Scottish public authorities defined in the legislation.

The power of consent is completely unnecessary and I ask the Financial Secretary to look again at the issue. The Administrations in Wales and Scotland have their own mandate; they are properly elected, functioning Administrations with a Parliament and an Assembly. I hope that one day Ministers in Northern Ireland will take control again, as is specified in the documentation with the Bill.

To require Treasury consent, and in some cases specific consent from the Chancellor in order for Ministers in the devolved Administrations to do their job, is completely unnecessary. I hope that the Minister will consider the matter in a trusting way, acknowledge the mandate of these Administrations and recognise that the power of consent in the clauses is unnecessary.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

The clause has been drafted to ensure that the devolved Administrations can play a full part in the work of the statistics board and so that they can have control over matters relating to wholly devolved statistics. For statistics that are not wholly devolved, the Bill establishes an appropriate framework for interaction between the board and the relevant devolved Administrations.

In respect of amendments Nos. 7 and 8 tabled by the hon. Member for Dundee, East, the powers in clause 27 are designed to protect the public interest so that if, and only if, the board fundamentally fails to deliver, for any reason, the Government can intervene, always publicly and in writing, to ensure that the board’s obligations are met. The clause provides an important safeguard, allowing the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the devolved Administrations to give the board such directions as are, in those circumstances, appropriate in the event of such a serious failure by the board to perform any of its functions or to comply with EU obligations.

I say this to the hon. Gentleman: it is appropriate that the Chancellor’s consent be needed for directions from Scottish Ministers. That is a last resort because a board failure might affect the position of statistics throughout the United Kingdom and so it is important that such directions be consistent. The consent will ensure that the directions are co-ordinated and that the Bill does not create any potentially conflicting powers. In addition, the resourcing of the board, in order to remedy a serious failure, will remain the responsibility of the UK Parliament, to which the Chancellor will, of course, be accountable. In such circumstances, shared accountability is important for such decisions and interventions.

We have been working closely with the Scottish Executive, as the Committee would expect, to ensure that the provisions in the Bill are appropriate to—in this case—Scotland. I can confirm that Scottish Ministers have agreed to their role in giving directions to the board in the case of a serious failure, including to the requirement for the Chancellor’s consent. The Scottish Parliament is being asked for its consent as well via the legislative consent motion currently lodged with it.

On amendments Nos. 9 to 12, we will discuss clauses on data sharing a little later. Essentially, the Bill sets out a mechanism for data sharing for statistical purposes between the board and public authorities only. The key point is that the mechanisms in clauses 45 and 49 mirror the mechanisms in other data-sharing clauses, which generally require the consent of the Treasury, as the body with residual legislative responsibility for the board, and of the Minister responsible for the other body involved in the data sharing. That will ensure that the Minister for the body disclosing data and the one responsible for the body receiving the data are both content for the regulation to be made. I see no reason why the provisions in Scotland should be any different from those applying else where. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not press his amendment.

Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Dundee East)

On amendments Nos. 7 and 8, I recognise that clause 27 is designed as a safeguard. I understand the argument that identified flaws might be universal and not simply relate to Scotland. However, on data sharing, which, as the Minister mentioned, we will have the opportunity to discuss in more detail later, I take issue with him when he said that the requirement is that both sides be content. That might be the intention and what is provided for in other legislation, but this Bill requires that the Treasury give consent, not that both parties be considered content with the data sharing. However, I shall not seek to press my amendments, although I might wish to return to them on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I beg to move amendment No. 28, in clause 27, page 11, line 35, at end insert

‘and a copy must be placed in the Library of each House of Parliament.’.

I think that we have established that directions under the clause are a serious matter. A failure by the board to comply with its objectives or to perform its functions would be serious and so a direction is not likely to be given lightly. In reply to the hon. Member for Dundee, East, the Minister said that it is right that the remedy remain with Parliament because that is where, he hopes, due accountability will be exercised under the process. As I understand the clause, directions from the Chancellor or devolved Ministers must be in writing, but do not have to be public.

It is true that under subsection (7) a direction must be published in such a manner that the authority to which it is directed must be aware of it. However, that could mean any type of notice—a notice in the Edinburgh Gazette, for example. It could be very localised. If Parliament is to exercise its ultimate accountability functions, it must be aware of any direction made. I suppose that it is too much to hope that the Government might accept a second set of amendments, but I cannot see how he could logically oppose this one. He introduced the idea that Parliament has ultimate accountability, so I think that Parliament must be aware of directions laid under subsection (7). That is the purpose of the amendment.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

The hon. Gentleman makes a useful point with his amendment. It is consistent with his intention at each stage to widen and deepen Parliament’s role in the scrutiny and accountability of the system. At this point, I cannot accept it as tabled because I would need to consider whether directions issued by Ministers in devolved Administrations might be laid publicly. If he will permit me, however, I will take away the point to consider, and I assure him that I will do so sympathetically.

Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks)

I am extremely grateful—I must not sound too surprised—to the Financial Secretary for that acceptance. The amendment makes sense, but I take his point perfectly about directions made by devolved Administrations. In the spirit in which he has accepted the principle, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Mark Hoban (Conservative, Fareham)

I want to push the Minister a little further. He made it clear in response to the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Dundee, East that the directions would be used rarely and in grave situations, and we recognise that. He committed to my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks that he would consider a way of publicising those directions, but in the context of parliamentary scrutiny, has he given any thought to whether, given their gravity, expected rarity and importance, they should be subject to parliamentary approval through the affirmative resolution procedure to give Parliament the opportunity to hold the Executive to account for such a degree of intervention?

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I do not think that that approach would be appropriate. The clause is quite standard. It is intended to be used as a last resort when there is a serious failure to carry out the duties with which Parliament will charge the board. It may be that that failure will require rapid direction on the Chancellor’s behalf or that of Ministers in devolved Administrations. Much better than requiring a legislative response to issue such directions might be the approach that the hon. Member for Sevenoaks is encouraging us to take—ensuring that directions laid under the clause would be reported directly to Parliament or the appropriate devolved Administration.

Clause 28

Theresa Villiers (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)

I had hoped to press for a vote on amendments Nos. 97 and 98, but because of time constraints, I will not. However, we will seek to return to the role and functions of the National Statistician on Report. For the reasons that we gave earlier, we feel that it is a flaw in the Bill that the National Statistician’s functions are insufficiently outlined. It is crucial to ensure that that role is heavyweight and has credibility and authority, which is why we will return to it.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

I am puzzled by the hon. Lady’s reference to time constraints. The Committee accepted the programme motion proposed for its sittings, and my hon. Friends and I are ready to sit for as long as it takes if she wants to keep us here. I note that she reserves her position, and I look forward to the debate if she decides to return to the matter on Report.

Clause 32

Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour, City of Durham)

I have a question for my hon. Friend the Minister. Is it the board’s intention to form a sub-committee specifically to consider strengthening and deepening public understanding of statistics? The concerns in all parts of the Committee about possible misuses of official statistics might be alleviated somewhat if the public had greater understanding of their purpose, how they are used and how they are collected. It is necessary to encourage people to participate in official surveys, which might be easier if the public understood why the surveys were being carried out and their importance to the policy making process.

Like Opposition Members, I have been making international comparisons. A number of countries set a lot of store by increasing public understanding of the use of statistics, most notably Japan. There is evidence that that encourages the public to participate in Government surveys. Interestingly, there is also a national statistics day in Japan, although I am not sure whether I advocate that idea. I have not tabled an amendment, but I would be grateful for information on Report about how we might encourage the development of greater public understanding. I refer the Minister to a recent article in the Public Understanding of Science journal that makes the point that statistical misunderstandings occur and that we should attempt to tackle the problem. I would be grateful if that was done.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

My hon. Friend has obviously been doing her research. I was unaware that Japan holds a national statistics day, which is not something that I am inclined to write into the Bill, although we will bear it in mind. As she will understand, I cannot answer for the board’s intentions as she asks me to. She is right that there is widespread concern about the difficulty of maintaining high response rates to certain important surveys and that better understanding of statistics and their use may well help. I anticipate that as the board becomes established and starts to undertake its duties, it will study the points made during our proceedings and that it will want to consider the matter.

Clause 35

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I beg to move amendment No. 198, in clause 35, page 14, line 25, at end insert—

‘(1A) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 36, below, in determining or promoting the use of statistics the Board shall have a duty to consider the benefits to public policy of sharing information.’.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 131, in clause 36, page 14, line 37, leave out paragraphs (a)and (b).

Amendment No. 118, in clause 36, page 14, line 40, at end insert—

‘(1A) Personal information under subsection (1) shall not be used except in relation to the exercise of any of the Board’s and National Statistician’s functions.’.

Amendment No. 119, in clause 36, page 14, line 40, at end insert—

‘(1B) Personal data may be disclosed by the National Statistician under subsection (1)—

(a) to approved researchers;

(b) to other authorities for uses consistent with the functions of the Board;

(c) to the National Statistician under sections 48, 49 and 50;

(d) with the consent of the person to whom it relates;

(e) under a European Community obligation for statistical purposes; and

(f) to service providers under section 38.’.

Amendment No. 185, in clause 36, page 15, line 11, leave out subsection (4).

Amendment No. 153, in clause 36, page 15, line 12, leave out paragraph (a).

Amendment No. 154, in clause 36, page 15, line 14, leave out paragraph (c).

Amendment No. 155, in clause 36, page 15, line 21, leave out paragraph (h).

Amendment No. 156, in clause 36, page 15, line 22, leave out subsection (5).

Amendment No. 199, in clause 36, page 15, line 24, at end insert

‘, whether that researcher is employed by an academic institution or by an appropriate public or non-government organisation’.

Amendment No. 157, in clause 36, page 15, line 25, leave out subsection (6).

Amendment No. 158, in clause 36, page 15, line 27, leave out subsection (7).

Amendment No. 159, in clause 36, page 15, line 30, leave out subsection (8).

Amendment No. 160, in clause 36, page 16, line 1, leave out paragraph (c).

Amendment No. 162, in clause 38, page 16, line 26, at end insert—

‘(2) In exercising its power under subsection (1) the Board must consider whether the service provider is a fit and proper person and must require that he signs a declaration, in such form as the Board may determine, that he understands the requirements of section 36 before any information is disclosed.’.

New clause 1—Disclosure of personal data—

‘Personal data, disclosed to the Board or the National Statistician and disclosed to other authorities for statistical purposes, is subject to section 36.’.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

On amendments Nos. 198 and 199, there is a point of principle about sharing data to provide a public benefit. On occasions, there have been problems with sharing data. Lazy bureaucrats, aided and abetted by lazy data protection advisers and lazy legal advisers, far too often respond to the possibility of sharing information with others by acting as if it were safer not to share data. They often claim that they are doing so on so-called data protection grounds, but that is wrong. They ought to follow best practice in data management, which involves balancing the benefits to sharing data with the disbenefits. I am pleased that the amendment is supported by the Association of Regional Observatories and others.

Amendment No. 199 is intended to tease out what I believe to be the intention of the drafting—that is, to ensure that access to statistics is as easy and quick as possible for those who will use them for practical purposes, such as to inform service delivery, develop local policies or analyse the needs of groups in society or local communities. That is what makes it essential for researchers in local government and in non-governmental organisations or charities to have quick and easy access, provided that they meet the criteria set out in the Bill.

Access must not be restricted to statisticians and researchers in universities when such access is vital for those who work for the betterment of the lives of those who are represented in the figures, through local authorities, charities, NGOs and other agencies. I hope that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary will not only agree with me about that, but confirm that what I am saying is the correct legal interpretation of the clause. It is important for those people to have access to the statistics with the minimum of bureaucracy.

I learned of an excellent example of the value of that only today, in discussing housing complaints with representatives of the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, although I did not know that it would illuminate this debate as effectively as I hope it will. Nowadays, 70 per cent. of citizens advice bureaux record their cases electronically, on a system called Case. They can quickly analyse cases by age, ethnicity, household size or income level, as well as the nature of the complaints that lead people to seek advice. Citizens advice bureaux have some 5.2 million client interfaces each year, whether on the telephone or in interviews, so the system is of significance. To meet their second aim of informing public policy, it is vital to overlie those client statistics on official statistics, to provide an accurate framework for comparison and analysis. The example of housing is an excellent one, but similar examples can also be found that inform the work of people at the local authority level in improving the quality of life for our people.

Some academics work with policy makers to improve the quality of local life. I have referred to some of them. They include Professor John Shepherd of Birkbeck college and his work on rural statistics; Professor Jonathan Shepherd at the University Hospital in Wales, whose work on reducing violence was seminal; and Professor Howard Williams, who analysed local data in the Ely area of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan).

I also acknowledge the fact that people working in the Office for National Statistics, Ministers and Treasury officials have shown real commitment to enabling us to drill down to the most local level of analysis. I hope that the Minister will assure me on both points: that that is the Government’s intention and that the capacity to use information properly to improve people’s quality of life, which will be the focus of the board’s activities, is what the Bill is intended to bring about.

Vincent Cable (Liberal Democrat, Twickenham)

There is an obvious link between clause 35 on the use of statistical information and the confidentiality provisions of clause 36. The amendments that my colleague and I have tabled relate to the confidentiality provisions. We want doubly to ensure that there is no misuse, as provided in clause 35. The key point is to be aware of the overriding purpose of statistics. The right hon. Gentleman was absolutely right: both professionally and in our current jobs, we all encounter examples of pettiness and restrictiveness in the use of figures. There is often a box-ticking approach to regulation, which is not very helpful.

We need to focus on the central objective, which is to build public confidence—both corporate and individual—in statistics. Businesses will not collaborate in giving accurate and honest information if they have any suspicion that their data will be made available to their competitors, unwittingly or otherwise. Similarly, individuals are not likely to contribute to statistical surveys, particularly in highly sensitive areas like the census, if there is any suspicion that data might be misused. We therefore take the view shared by the Royal Statistical Society and others that the confidentiality provisions of the Bill need to be sharpened, although the Bill clearly provides for some protection. We have suggested various routes in the group of amendments.

A new clause, which is brief and to the point, says that personal data disclosed to the board or National Statistician is subject to the provisions of clause 36. In other words, the use of data as described in clause 35 is subject to all the penalties and protections of clause 36. Clause 36 should be sharpened and clarified. We have suggested two amendments, amendments Nos. 118and 119, which are designed to achieve that aim, particularly via a chapeau, a phrase, that covers various groups of people by saying:

“Personal information...shall not be used except in relation to the exercise of any of the Board’s and National Statistician’s functions.”

The next amendment then defines the groups of individuals to which it would be legitimate and appropriate to release statistical information.

Like the Government, our broad objective is to show that confidentiality is protected, for public confidence reasons. There is a view, certainly in the statistical community, that the Bill could be stronger and clearer. That is why we have tabled our amendments.

Mark Hoban (Conservative, Fareham)

I should like to speak first to amendment No. 153, which is in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet. We picked up on the point made by the hon. Member for Twickenham at the outset of his remarks. The amendments are seeking to probe the nature of the clause, with a view to establishing a greater confidence in the security and confidentiality of data collected by the board for the preparation of statistics. If we are to achieve some of the benefits of the Bill—greater access to administrative data, for example, to reduce the cost of preparation—then we need to make sure that people are comfortable that when data are supplied to the board their use is protected and safeguarded.

First, amendment No. 153 deletes subsection (4)(a), which states that disclosure can take place where there has been a legislative enactment to override the duty of confidentiality. My concern is that data are collected for one purpose by the ONS—statistical output—but the Government then seek access for a different purpose, which is almost using the ONS as a conduit for acquiring information. We should be very clear that the information gateway should not be through the ONS but between the two end users, which is why I am concerned about subsection (4)(a).

Amendment No. 154 leaves out subsection (4)(c). In clarification, given that information is provided to the board to enable it in clause 36(1) to undertake any of its functions, why is there an override in clause 36(4)(c)? I should have thought that the provisions of subsection (1) would be adequate to cover that.

Amendments Nos. 155 to 159 are on approved research and access to data. Amendment No. 155 would delete clause 36(4)(h), and the other amendments are consequential on that. I am concerned about why approved researchers might need access to information that would enable them to identify somebody. Why cannot that information be provided to them in an anonymous form so that they cannot trace which individuals supplied it? I would welcome clarification of that point.

Clause 36(10) contains exemptions on the use of data in cases where a person did not reasonably believe that they could have identified a person from the data that they used. On paragraph (c), I shall return to the example of the 2001 census to illustrate the ease with which it is possible to identify a person from data collected from different sources. Information was collected at postcode level, so data were collected, for example, for SO31 6NL, where I live. There are22 houses covered by that postcode. I do not know the domestic circumstances of all the residents of The Vale, but an analysis of the data might be sufficient to identify which individuals supplied which data, based on the number of children in a household, people’s occupations and qualifications and so on. We should be careful in giving carve-outs exempting people from prosecution because the granularity of the data provided, in conjunction with other publicly available information, could mean that people inadvertently or even deliberately find personal information.

Amendment No. 162 would amend clause 38, which enables the disclosure of information to service providers. A third party might be involved in the census, for example, or data collection and analysis might be subcontracted to service providers as part of the commercial arrangements that the board might make. The clause states that the board must consider whether it is

“necessary or appropriate to do so”.

It is interesting to compare that with clause 36(8), which states that approved researchers must sign a declaration to demonstrate that they have understood the requirements of that clause. No similar obligation is placed on third-party service providers. There should be a degree of consistency between the provisions for approved researchers and service providers.

John Healey (Labour, Wentworth)

The amendments bring us to the part of the Bill that is concerned with confidentiality and data access. I suspect that we shall return in more detail to some of the points that have been raised when we consider subsequent clauses.

The ONS and the government statistical service have a long history of maintaining data confidentiality. They already hold securely sensitive data including census returns, employee earnings and businesses’ profits. We are taking steps, not only in the Bill, to allow the continuation of data sharing and to extendit under certain tightly controlled circumstances, increasing the safeguards as we do so. The hon. Member for Twickenham said that they need to be sharper: I say that they will be stronger protections. The Bill introduces a criminal sanction against the unlawful disclosure of information concerning both individuals and businesses, whether held by board members and employees or anyone to whom the board has passed data that identify an individual or business or allow someone to deduce that identity.

We are conscious of the human rights implications of the proposals and we are sensitive to the need to strike an appropriate balance between the wider public interest in data sharing and the rights of individuals. The data sharing and confidentiality clauses are considered compatible with the convention on human rights.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth rightly recognises the benefits to statistics and public policy of data sharing, as do the Government and I. He is concerned about the definition of “approved researcher” in the Bill, which was why he tabled amendment No. 199. I want to make it clear on the record that the definition is not limited to individuals in academic institutions, which was his principal concern.

Amendments Nos. 153 to 162 would all limit the board’s ability to carry out the functions that it is required by the Bill to discharge. With regard to amendment No. 162, the board needs to be able to disclose information to service providers. I think that the hon. Member for Fareham would accept, for example, that the board must be able to pass data to an external IT provider that has been contracted to undertake crucial data processing on behalf of the board, as the ONS did when carrying out the 2001 census. I hope that after those remarks, right hon. and hon. Members will be content not to press their amendments, although they may wish to return to some of the points and examine them, together with the principal case underlying our approach, in more detail as our deliberations continue.

Alun Michael (Labour, Cardiff South and Penarth)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his response. It would perhaps be useful to follow up in correspondence some of the detailed legal advice that he has taken, but I am happy with the strength of the response. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.