Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I thought that the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers) rather undervalued the process that we have been through in Committee and since. We are taking part in an historic event, and I should tell colleagues who were in Committee that I thoroughly enjoyed being involved in the debates. Our proceedings have been particularly good, the issues have been intelligently approached by Members in all parts of the House, and the Minister has responded to our concerns. I particularly welcome Government amendment No. 48, which has been agreed today and makes it clear what statistics are for. There is always a danger of statistics being treated as though they are for statisticians—as though they are merely neutral, arid facts. They are not. The amendment made it clear that the wider public interest has to be served by the preparation, collection and publication of statistics. It made it clear that the purpose of statistics is to inform the public so that they can understand the issues that those statistics reflect, and to inform public service delivery. In other words, their purpose is to paint a picture of reality. I have never believed it right to say that there are lies, damn lies and statistics. There are lies, damn lies and statistics misinterpreted, misapplied and misused. However, statistics used properly and engaged with can lead to an evidence-based approach to debate in this House and elsewhere, and to an evidence-based approach to public policy. In other words, statistics are not just for statisticians—they are far more important than that. They are there for all of us who are concerned about public policy. Of course, the independence and objectivity of statistics is vital and basic, which is why I applaud the Government for introducing this Bill; and of course it is right for Members to be concerned about improving the level of objectivity and independence in order to ensure the integrity of statistics. I say to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) that the level of public confidence in statistics is probably a reflection of the low level of public debate in the media, rather than of the level of trust that can rightly be placed in statistics. In my experience—I am not talking about statistics produced only by the Government, but by local government and many other agencies—they are generally produced with integrity and are always subject to challenge. We should always ask whether they have been prepared on the right basis and whether the right questions have been asked. The general quality of the preparation of statistics in this country is very high indeed. To treat them with disdain or disrespect, as the media frequently do, or to suggest that they can be interfered with by Ministers, is actually flying in the face of reality. My particular concern is to ensure that statistics are fit for purpose in terms of their effective use—not just at a national level, but at local and sub-regional level, as well as national and regional levels. That has been the subject of serious debate during the passage of the Bill. I underline again the fact that statistics are not ends in themselves, but the means to such ends as crime reduction, an improved quality of life or better service delivery in health and education, which are vital to our constituents. I hope that the result of amendment No. 48—building the purposes of statistics directly into the Bill—will translate into action by the National Statistician and the statistics board. We want an effective focus on ensuring that the relevant national and official statistics provide evidence of local variations and service needs, for example. By local variations, I mean not just local authority areas, but ward and sub-ward level statistics. Those statistics should help us to ensure that, wherever people live, they get the service and response that they need, as reflected in the figures produced. Very often, those of us who have been involved in public life at whatever level will say, ““Give me the facts””—and very often it is difficult to get hold of them because the wrong questions have been asked and the wrong statistics collected. Once the board is appointed, I hope that it will not just ask questions by looking backwards—perhaps to what were important issues of public policy last year or 10 years ago. Actually, the board should press policy makers to look at the statistics and ask questions about next year or the next five, 10 or 20 years. We should be collecting information now that will help to inform public policy for the very long term. That means encouraging the confidence and engagement of the public with facts. It is a very sad fact that nowadays an opinion expressed in a blog can be repeated by a national journalist on the front page of one of the less responsible newspapers in a way that may appear to give it equal value to the important statistics produced by the National Statistician, the Office for National Statistics and, indeed, by other authorities. I think that undermines the quality of debate about important issues in this country. That is why I believe that this Bill is one of the most important that has come before the House this year. To provide one example, it has always seemed to me that in dealing with the reduction of crime and disorder it is very important to deal with the facts. Most people’s view of crime and disorder in the local area is informed by what they see in the local newspapers. Many people therefore think that crime has gone up in areas where it has, in fact, gone down. I recall a recent discussion at St. Mellons in my constituency in which a police representative referred to a slight growth in burglary over the past year or so. When we asked what exactly that meant, it turned out that it was a fairly small increase in burglary, and those who had engaged with the issue over many years knew full well that the level of burglary in the area was far below what it had been 10 years earlier. It is important to be able to make those comparisons. It is also important, when the police and the local authority carry out their obligations to reduce crime in the area, that they know what they are dealing with. At national level, we have very good crime statistics, which are tested by the figures in the British crime survey, which reflects people’s experience of crime. That tests whether the police statistics actually reflect reality, which is good. However, if that is not carried down to local level, so that people know what is happening in the city and in the local ward, it is impossible for them to be completely sure of what they are trying to do in terms of reducing crime as well as of chasing after offenders. I could repeat that example across many other public services, but I shall mention just one. Analysing crime and violent crime in the city of Cardiff resulted in—