Statistics and Registration Service Bill

moved Amendment No. 1: 1: Clause 10, page 5, line 20, after ““for”” insert ““Official”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of the amendment and the others grouped with it is to clear up a muddle from the Report stage last week. We wish to make it clear that the proposed code of practice, together with all the related duties, processes and procedures to be observed by the board and by Ministers, applies directly only to official statistics and not to statistics produced by other bodies such as public companies, universities or charities. I remind noble Lords that official statistics, as they will be defined under Clause 9, cover the whole range of government statistics, whether produced centrally by the ONS or by the much wider range of government bodies, including departments, agencies, devolved Administrations and any other people acting on behalf of the Crown. Within that wide range, there is a narrower subset of so-called national statistics, which the Minister helpfully described last week as, "““the key statistics that the Government, business and the public rely on to provide an accurate, up-to-date, comprehensive and meaningful description of the UK””.—[Official Report, 18/6/07; col. 36.]" As the Bill arrived in this House from another place, the code of practice was expressly applied only to this narrower subset of national statistics. On Second Reading and in Committee, it was forcefully argued from these Benches, from the Liberal Democrat Benches and from the Cross-Benches that that made no sense and that the code should apply to all official statistics. Wisely, Ministers accepted that advice and on Report, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, tabled a series of amendments to leave out the word ““national”” in references to the code so that, for instance, Clause 10(1), to which my first amendment applies, now reads, "““a code of practice for statistics””." Of course, that covers all official statistics and so meets the substance of the arguments that we addressed to the Government. However, that immediately opened up a further argument, which was succinctly put by noble friend Lady Noakes last Monday. She said: "““Will the Minister explain the subtlety of saying that it is a code for statistics? Is it intended to apply to statistics prepared by voluntary or commercial organisations and, if so, how does that fit in with the Bill? Essentially, the Bill deals with statistics produced by government, which is why we used the Government's own definition of ‘official statistics’ in renaming the code””." The Minister chose not to respond to that until right at the end of his reply to the debate, when he was prompted again by my noble friend. She said: "““My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down””—" one is familiar with that formula— "““several of us have raised the question of why the code is now the code for statistics, not the code for official statistics. A definition of official statistics is clearly laid out in the Bill. National statistics are in effect a subset of that, but the Government have chosen to say that this is a code for statistics, which implies that it goes beyond official statistics””." It is worth reading in full the extraordinary exchanges that followed that question. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, said: "““My Lords, the intention is that the code should apply as widely as possible within the framework of the board's competence. I have said that our crucial distinction is between national and official statistics, but the board will identify clear criteria for a code that all to obtain with certain other statistics which may not be official but nevertheless may be of significance to the public realm””." A moment later, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, intervened and said: "““My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I am slightly mystified. I did not think that the board had any role beyond what is defined in the Bill as official statistics. What kind of body other than those covered by the definition of official statistics would the board have any jurisdiction over or seek to take a particular interest in?””" The noble Lord, Lord Davies, answered: "““My Lords, the issue of national statistics—official statistics which are largely the statistics of governmental bodies””." I must say that I am not quite sure that I followed that sentence. He continued: "““We can see no reason why certain non-governmental organisations that produce statistics for the public realm should not seek to hit the standards that the code will embody. Of course, the board will not have control over them, but it will be issuing a code which others will observe if they want credibility in public life””.—[Official Report, 18/6/07; cols. 39 and 45.]" That was the very first intimation throughout the entire progress of the Bill—we are now on Third Reading in the second House—that the code is intended by Ministers to apply to bodies beyond those that produce official statistics. The words that the Minister used seemed to recognise that that will be outside the remit of what will be the Statistics Board. Where does that leave us? Since that extraordinary debate, I have sought advice from a number of quarters. The reaction of the Statistics Commission—I have been in touch with a senior man, Richard Alldritt—was quite clear. He replied to me: "““The Government is in a tangle on this””—" you can say that again— "““On the one hand it wants the Code to be seen as applying very widely; hence Lord Davies’s comments about ‘certain non-governmental organisations that produce statistics’ But, on the other hand, the Board’s responsibilities extend only to official statistics, as defined in [the] Bill and the code is only binding on producers of National Statistics. The Code that we want to see adopted””—" I remind the House that the Statistics Commission has produced a draft code— "““would not be suitable for ‘unofficial statistics’ if that is taken to mean, for example, the published results of surveys conducted door to door for a retailer—we would not expect those to be done to the same standards as government household surveys and, in any case, it is no business of the Board’s how they are done””." He went on to suggest that the right answer was, "““to label the Code as the ‘Code of Practice for Official Statistics’””." That is exactly the amendment that we have tabled. There was a similar response from the RSS—the Royal Statistical Society, whose president, Tim Holt, replied: "““The only thing the Board has competence for is Official Statistics. It may argue that in general terms the spirit of the Code should be adopted by non-governmental producers but it could have done that using a Code for Official Statistics—it has no wider jurisdiction””." From the professional side, there was a clear reply, and I shall return in a few moments to the suggestion about the spirit of the code. I also consulted a number of organisations outside government—one major commercial company and one university institute. Earlier this month I attended a presentation by BP of its formidable annual Statistical Review of World Energy 2007. It covers a vast range of energy statistics, and was presented on that occasion by BP’s chief economist, Peter Davies, and his nominated successor Christof Rühl. When I asked for their reaction to the Minister’s statement, their response was: "““While we have absolute confidence in the impartiality and accuracy of BP’s Statistical Review, we cannot say at this stage with any certainty whether such a code as proposed by the Bill would cause legal or other reasons for us to hesitate publishing this or any other publication of a statistical nature. Such publications are intended to facilitate knowledge of energy statistics in a convenient and easily accessible fashion. But they are secondary statistics compiled from other official sources and it is unclear whether such a Code would oblige us to assume a greater responsibility for the veracity of the statistics than is currently the case. We will now need to consider the legislation and code very seriously, both during its passage through Parliament and should it be enacted””." BP is right to be concerned. More worryingly, there is no evidence that it or any other commercial company was consulted on the proposal. Indeed, there seems to have been no consultation whatever, so my first question to the Minister is: what consultations have there been on his suggestion that the code should, as I said earlier, apply as widely as possible to certain non-governmental organisations that produce statistics for the public realm? I have found no one who knew anything about it, so will the Minister say what consultations there have been? My second approach was to the Institute for Social and Economic Research—ISER—at Essex University, a body for whose work I have had great respect over many years. Its reply, which I shall quote in full because it is helpful, was very forceful, and states: "““ISER is currently responsible for producing one major longitudinal survey heavily used in scientific and policy research, the British Household Panel Survey, and is developing another, the UK Longitudinal Household Study. We would be concerned if the Statistics Bill did attempt to extend the scope of the Code of Practice beyond Official Statistics or National Statistics. There has been no opportunity to consult properly on such an extension, nor to explore its implications properly””." The response continues: "““More generally, there is a risk that if the Statistics Board was attempting””—" this is the important point— "““to develop a Code of Practice which applied to a wide range of statistics outside government, it would dilute the very necessary principles which should apply to official statistics””." Again, there has been no consultation, but a significant risk is identified in that final sentence; so my second question to the Minister is whether he will confirm that when the Statistics Board prepares its code of practice under Clause 10, it will be directed solely to the range of official statistics that lie within its remit and it will not ““dilute”” that by trying to make the code applicable to a wider range of statistics outside its remit. Finally, I return to the point I referred to earlier about the spirit of the code, which was mentioned by the Royal Statistical Society. He suggested that the spirit of the code might be adopted by non-governmental producers. I would not be so concerned if the Minister had said in reply to my noble friend’s question on Report, ““The code will, of course, be for official statistics but producers of other statistics may find some of the principles in that code of value as they produce and disseminate their own statistics””. So my third question is whether that is actually what the Minister meant to say. Those were not his words, but I think that is what he may have meant. There has apparently been no consultation with anybody on the Minister’s propositions as put forward last week. They have clearly caused anxiety among important producers of statistics outside the range of official statistics. I suspect that the Minister may have gone further than he intended. He could clear all this confusion up in a moment by accepting our amendment, which provides that this code should apply to official statistics. I beg to move.