Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I think that that is a rather negative reason for keeping those powers within the Treasury, and I concede that the hon. Lady has a point. However, I would rather answer a different question, which the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet did not raise in her introduction, namely, which body would be the most keen to ensure that an evidence-based approach to public policy development is pursued within Government and within all institutions of Government—agencies of Government, local government, local health boards and all the other institutions that provide service and spend the money that is voted to them by Parliament? That question addresses an issue that is at the heart of the Bill. The whole point of statistics—this was my reason for welcoming Government amendment No. 48—is to make sure that there is an objective basis for policy development and for the way in which we tackle real problems and link different issues. That is why I am so keen that we should be able to do local overlays at ward and sub-ward level of the impact of health situations, educational attainment and criminal justice and youth justice activities. All such matters must be joined in order to create healthy communities. Communities exist fundamentally at the local level. National statistics are important, but the more that they inform the quality of life of individuals in the street, the borough or the village—or whatever kind of local community we are talking about across the country—the more we will be using statistics positively. Therefore, the hon. Lady’s questions address subsidiary issues. I agree that it is important to make sure that there is not inappropriate interference by Ministers, but the idea that there is such interference is media and Opposition mythology. Over 10 years, during most of which time I was a Minister, I have never seen the slightest opportunity for interference with statistics or for meddling with them. If the hon. Lady knows about anything that I missed during that 10-year period, I would be very interested to learn about it. What I did find on a variety of occasions was that it was necessary to ask the people preparing the statistics—in the Home Office, for instance—““Why can’t you answer this particular question, which is important for the development of public policy?”” Let me give the example that I mentioned in Committee. When the Labour party came to office in 1997, it had a commitment to halve the time it took to get young offenders before the courts. For my part, that commitment was well informed by my experience, when I chaired the juvenile bench, of having young offenders come before me who did not have a clue what accusation they were answering to on that particular occasion. They might have been accused over a period of time of having committed a long string of burglaries, and they would say, ““Sorry, mister, but which one are we talking about?”” The hearing that followed would be totally irrelevant to their lives, and certainly to the amendment of their future ways and career.