Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I should begin with an apology if I did not mention trust in the Second Reading debate. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury has said many times in the other place that the Government share what is no doubt the ultimate goal of the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness—that these reforms and this legislation will help to rebuild and bring greater public trust and confidence in official statistics. The problem with the amendments, as the noble Baroness will recognise, is that they translate an ambition that we all share and which I might add is important to the Bill into a statutory responsibility on the board for delivering high levels of public trust in its official statistics. We certainly look forward to the board successfully delivering exactly that but it is a different matter saying that it is accountable in statute for so doing. Amendment No. 35 places an obligation on the board to ensure high levels of public trust in official statistics. That is what we all hope for, but it may be an unreasonable obligation to place on it. The noble Lord, Lord Moser, who I am glad to see in his place, said at Second Reading: "““Trust, however, is a complex matter. For one thing, trust in statistics is part and parcel of trust in government themselves, and, indeed, in politicians in general””.—[Official Report, 26/3/07; col. 1454.]" That is a broad enough canvas to enable us to recognise that it may not be entirely fair to put such an obligation on the board by statute. How statistics are used and presented to people, especially via the media, plays a very important role in whether people do or do not trust official figures. Levels of numeracy and people’s understanding of figures and statistics are also likely to impact on their scepticism or otherwise of official statistics. People’s individual experiences of issues presented at an aggregate level by statistics also plays a part in their propensity to trust those statistics. We are all aware of the fact that these weaknesses can apply to ourselves. It is often said that politicians never take statistics more seriously than when they appear in opinion polls. However limited such snapshots may be, they become the stuff of media headlines. As we all know to our advantage or cost, politicians view them as conditioning elements in public behaviour. I again apologise for not emphasising the importance oftrust in official statistics. However, it cannot be made a statutory obligation on the board to require itto achieve what it has only a role in helping toachieve. The amendment, which would require the board to carry out research on public trust in official statistics and publish the results of that work, reflects the fact that the ONS and the Statistics Commission do such work. They commission and undertake research in this important area. It is something the board is already empowered to do and we expect that it may well do it. However, the Government are reluctant to prescribe it in the Bill. It is better to leave it tothe independent board to determine what activitiesit will undertake at different times to deliver itscore objective; namely, to promote and safeguard the quality and comprehensiveness of official statistics which serve the public good. Therefore, I hope that the noble Baroness will not press the amendment. Amendment No. 114 would provide an additional requirement regarding what issues must be covered in the board’s annual report—in this case, the issue of public trust in statistics. As I said, we do not think it necessary to over-prescribe how the board goes about its business. I do not think that it is helpful to statein detail what it must cover in its annual report. Clause 25 already requires the board’s annual report to cover what it has done and found each year. Within that remit surely we should allow the board to use its own judgment to ensure that the most pertinent and relevant information about its activities is reported each year. We share the objectives of the noble Baroness, but we do not need to be prescriptive in statute for the board to fulfil those highly desirable objectives.