Report stage in the Lords
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Lord DearingCrossbench- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 1:
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Lord NewbyLiberal Democrat- Quote
- My Lords, my name is attached to the amendment, along with that of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing. It is relevant to think about the policy background, particularly the growing realisation that many aspects of public policy are best delivered at regional or, more often, local level. Indeed, the incoming Prime Minister has made a number of speeches to this effect. One can think of a number of policy areas where it makes sense to have the maximum amount of discretion to work together across public policies to deliver goals which are widely accepted as desirable. One example of the need for joined-up thinking is the Every Child Matters agenda which, by its very nature, requires local authorities to pull together a raft of services to make sure that children are better provided for. Another example, which is currently in vogue, is community cohesion. There is no simple bit of local government that is responsible; there needs to be joined-up thinking. For local authorities to do that work, they need the best possible statistics. Statistics which simply show national trends are all very well, but they cannot be treated as a reliable indication of what is happening in a local authority area.
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Lord Jenkin of RodingConservative- Quote
- My Lords, I had thought that I might address the issue on which the noble Lords, Lord Dearing and Lord Newby, have spoken during discussion on Amendments Nos. 3 and 4, to be moved in a few moments by my noble friend Lady Noakes. However, in view of what they have said, perhaps I may add a word about the importance of these statistics to local authorities. The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, laid great stress on the value of the statistics to local authorities in doing their work, but the anxiety which has been raised with me—I declare an interest as a joint president of London Councils, which represents all the borough councils in London—is primarily about the measure of the grants that are paid to local authorities. I have the advantage of reading—I assure noble Lords that I do not intend to read more than a few sentences of it—the report that lies behind the letter from Councillor Merrick Cockell that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, quoted. It is one of the very best reports from London Councils that I have read in several years. Headed, Population Measures and Grant Distribution, it contains a sentence of which the House should be aware. It states: “The importance of population figures in the distribution of grant coupled with the move to population projections,”— which is now proposed— “the rapid and increasing scale and changing characteristics of international migration following the enlargement of the European Union in 2004, the large differences between 1991-based local population estimates and the 2001 Census, and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) project to improve estimates of international migration have brought population issues to the forefront”. Lower down, the report says that, “there is mounting evidence from alternative estimates, the Statistics Commission, the Audit Commission, the Governor of the Bank of England”— I may return to that later— “and the ONS that suggests that the population estimates significantly underestimate the scale of international in-migration nationally”. That has huge financial consequences for local authorities and, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, has said, not least in London, where, it is believed, a great majority of those who come from overseas initially settle. This poses very great burdens on London local authorities, which have to provide various local authority services for these people, including housing and education, when they get no, or very little, additional grant in recognition of the burdens being imposed on them. The point being made by the amendment is that what we are discussing is of enormous importance to local authorities, and it is one that I would very strongly endorse. I am as yet unclear whether appointing a member representing local authorities to the Statistics Board is the right way in which to deal with this; there are so many other interests that have concerns about statistics for which the board will be responsible. I hope that the Minister will be able to take on board that the importance of population statistics has been enormously enhanced for local authorities both because of the increasing in-migration and migration within the country and because of the effect that this has on grants paid by the Government to local authorities. That needs addressing urgently and thoroughly if local authority concerns are to begin to be alleviated.
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Baroness NoakesConservative- Quote
- My Lords, the amendment would add another category of consultee to Clause 3(4), but our preference would be not to have that subsection at all. As my noble friend Lord Jenkin said, there is a problem as to where it should end with regard to which bodies you consult. The most important thing is that the Statistics Board includes excellent people, who will lay the foundations for an independent board committed to excellence in public statistics and restoring trust in those statistics. Any mention of a consultation, albeit that it falls short of representativeness, runs the risk of tokenism. To that extent, we are unsure about adding to the list, although we completely understand the logic of what the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, proposed. As my noble friend Lord Jenkin pointed out, I have tried to address the undoubted needs of local government to be reflected in the work of the Statistics Board in Amendments Nos. 3 and 4, to which I shall come later. We sympathise completely with what lies at the heart of the noble Lord’s amendment, but we are less than convinced that it is the right mechanism.
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- Lord DearingCrossbench
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- My Lords, if I could just respond by saying to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding—
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Lord Davies of OldhamLabour- Quote
- My Lords, perhaps it would help if I made a contribution, as the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, rightly addressed the amendment for government consideration. We recognise the strength of feeling behind the noble Lord’s representation on this issue; he is supported in several other parts of the House. We share the view that it is imperative that the board is able fully to assess and address the needs of those who rely on statistics for local and regional level policy-making, which is the burden of his case. We recognise that the availability of such statistics is increasingly important and that statistics are required from neighbourhood level, through local and regional level, up to national level. As I indicated in Committee, we want a tight and cohesive board, with members appointed collectively to represent a wide range of interests. We want to retain as much flexibility as possible to establish the right mix of people to achieve that and to serve the public interest; we do not want to stipulate interest groups that must be consulted. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, indicated that that raises some problems in producing an exhaustive and comprehensive list. I hear what the noble Baroness says, that it is a pity that subsection (4) is in the Bill. However, as I said in Committee, the reason the list exists at all is that the Cabinet Office must consult the devolved Administrations on appointments. Under the devolution settlement, the devolved Administrations have responsibility for devolved matters, including the production of statistics relating to those matters. By accepting this legislation, the devolved Administrations agreed that the board should have jurisdiction over devolved statistics produced by those Administrations. I am sure that the House will recognise the advantage of that for the development of the quality of statistics in this area. Given the constitutional responsibilities of the devolved Administrations for those statistics, it is right that the legislation should explicitly specify that each legislature should be consulted on the appointment of one member. We recognise the significance of the concern about statistics for local policy-making. I bear in mind particularly the points made today on migration statistics and the difficulty that they produce for local authorities. The ONS has been working with local authorities and government departments to identify how new and existing sources can be used to inform migration estimates. In 2005, detailed case studies were started in four local authorities to investigate the potential for alternative sources and methods. Two of the studies were in London—in Barnet and in Hammersmith and Fulham. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, emphasised the London dimension of those problems. Reports on the completed studies in London will be published on the ONS website in June this year. In response to the letter that was identified on the concerns of the London councils about the position, David Rhind, chair of the Statistics Commission, set out the action that he believed was necessary to improve migration statistics. He contested that it would be wrong to simply blame the Office for National Statistics. We need to change practices, and to obtain better estimates the ONS will need to receive raw information on people moving into and around the country, not only from local government and the department concerned but from other national departments in Whitehall: the Home Office, the Department for Work and Pensions, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Department of Health. What is clearly needed is a sound system for people entering the country and their destinations. That has implications for data protection and it has technical implications. Any data on individuals would have to be kept totally confidential. The House will recognise that the Bill makes great strides in giving the powers and reassurance on that front, and we will be discussing a dimension of that issue later this afternoon.
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- Lord DearingCrossbench
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- My Lords, I thank the Minister for that positive reply. I entirely agree with the point that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, made about migration. I have received similar representations. I would be glad to support the amendment relating to the functions of the board that he has tabled with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Lord, Lord Newby. I ventured to make a similar point last time around. With the assurance given by the Minister and the prospect of what might lie ahead, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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- Baroness NoakesConservative
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- moved Amendment No. 2:
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- Lord NewbyLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, the amendments in this group have become known as the muddle amendments. The noble Baroness described several aspects of the potential muddle. The government amendments deal with some of them but not, unfortunately, all of them. They deal pretty comprehensively with the potential muddle between the National Statistician and the head of assessment. In my view, that is arguably the least important element in this regard. The government amendments do not deal adequately with the potential muddle between the function of the board as opposed to that of the National Statistician. Government Amendment No. 32 states: “The National Statistician must establish an executive office … to assist him in his exercise of”, this, that and the other function. That sort of implies that that is his, rather than the board’s, function. It is therefore a great pity that the Government did not also accept proposed subsection (1) of Amendment No. 2, which states that, “the National Statistician is to carry out the functions of the Board, and in respect of those functions he is to be the chief executive of the Board”. You could have sensibly gone on from there with the Government’s amendment but the government amendment starts off halfway through the narrative. I hope that, whatever we decide this afternoon, the Government will add that small subsection at Third Reading. It simply clarifies what they seem to want to achieve. At the noble Baroness mentioned, in the amendments there is no reference to, and no attempt to clarify, the role of the chairman vis-à-vis the board. I suspect that this will have to be down to the good sense and personalities of the people involved. There may be a marginal difference in the balance of who becomes the voice of the board if the chairman is a very strong public figure and the National Statistician is relatively self-effacing compared with a chairman who is very sound but not quite as forward as a high-profile National Statistician. Therefore, there may be a need to retain a degree of flexibility in how those two individuals behave and work together, although everything will depend on them working together well. Although some of the mist is clearing from the muddle, some remains. I hope that the Minister will look at that small additional amendment at Third Reading. As the noble Baroness said, we are grateful to the Government for at least having looked at and grappled with this matter. We accept that it is not an easy issue and, in that spirit, we, too, will support the government amendments this afternoon.
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Lord MoserCrossbench- Quote
- My Lords, we have had many months of discussion on the Bill—public discussion and consultation and discussion in the other place and here—and much of it has obviously centred on the organisational structure envisaged under the new reforms. I have looked at the present version of the Bill and today’s amendments and have thought back a little to the concerns that I and others have expressed at various stages. I start with the top layer of the new governance structure, which is Parliament. Of course, I understand that we could not have expected the role of Parliament to be described in the Bill, but we cannot conclude our discussions without going back to that aspect because it is the top layer. In future, the new Statistics Board, which the Bill establishes and which we have all basically welcomed, will report to Parliament, and this is not a simple or perfunctory role. In my view, it is not just a question of laying a report once a year for our discussion or consideration or the occasional question. It is absolutely clear that detailed and tricky issues, such as behaviour in relation to the new code, may come back to Parliament. Therefore, I simply want to put on the record the view expressed at earlier stages, notably by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that at some point we must consider this aspect of the new reforms, although I do not know whose task that will be. At present, two committees—one in each House—go close to the subject matter. There is the Treasury Committee in the other place and the Economic Affairs Committee here, but neither is fit for purpose for the new Bill. The Treasury Committee basically deals with Treasury issues, but we have made it clear time and again that we are dealing with issues relating to all departments. The same kind of point relates to the Economic Affairs Committee, so something new has to be established if Parliament’s job under the reforms is to be carried out. The subject that has occupied us most is the relationship between the board and the National Statistician. At previous stages, we have asked for greater clarity, which means, first, clarity about the role of the board. I greatly appreciate the Government’s amendments. I thank the Minister and others who have been involved. We have gone a long way towards responding to the worried views expressed on this matter here by the Royal Statistical Society and the Statistics Commission. These amendments go far enough to leave the rest in the hands of a very good board.
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- Lord Jenkin of RodingConservative
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- My Lords, the points that I would have made have already been made by other speakers, but I want to emphasise the last point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moser. At an earlier stage, I said that the function of the board is not so much to regulate the statistics, but to regulate the people who produce the statistics. The noble Lord, Lord Moser, has made the point that if there are references in the Bill to the board producing statistics, that is still capable of generating muddle. The National Statistician, the department of which the National Statistician will be the head, the various departments and other organs of government produce the statistics. The role of the board is to see that they do it properly, to coin a phrase, and to scrutinise. It would be enormously helpful if, in response to this debate, the Minister could accept that the board itself does not produce statistics and perhaps amendments could then be made at a later stage, or in another place, to reflect what seems to me to be an absolutely crucial point in this organisation. That lies at the heart of what the noble Lord, Lord Moser, has described as the muddle. I am perhaps not quite as optimistic as he is that that muddle has been totally resolved. It would be very helpful if the Minister could give the kind of assurances for which I have asked.
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Lord TurnbullCrossbench- Quote
- My Lords, at Second Reading and in Committee, I was more or less a lone voice in arguing for a unitary board, so I am pleased that we have now basically accepted that principle. I wanted all statistics to be produced with the full authority of the board, which goes beyond simply saying that the National Statistician produces them. The board should have to put its name to them, to ward off any serious challenge from Ministers. We are refining a model, and it is one that I have argued for all the way through the debates. The relative power of the chairman and the chief executive is something that statute should allow to develop over time. Think of the Audit Commission—there have been changes in the relative standing of the chair and the controller of audit at different times, to reflect the personalities and skills of each. I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moser, about the three days a week. I suspect that it is necessary in the set-up phase, when the chair does a lot of the interviewing of the senior people coming into the organisation. However, once it is in steady state, three days a week is probably too much and will bias the balance and prevent the natural evolution of the relationship between those two figures.
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- My Lords, we have had a useful debate on one of the core aspects of the Bill. As the House will recognise, the Government never thought there was a muddle about the governance structure and the respective roles and responsibilities of the board and the National Statistician. However, in so far as through debate we have been pressed for greater clarification on the issues—we hope we have succeeded in providing it—the Bill has been advanced and strengthened. The amendments, tabled both by the Government and by other Members of the House, broadly reflect a goal we all share—that of making the Bill as clear as possible on governance and roles and responsibilities. We are legislating in some respects for a dynamic situation. This is the first creative phase with regard to the board, so the definition of the role of the chairman, the amount of time that he or she will devote to it and the remuneration reflect the arduousness of creating a very substantial institution. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, that that can change when we get into steady state—that the demands may not be so great on the chairman then. I also agree with a number of other noble Lords that, as with so many boards and the relationship between the chairman and the chief executive, the relationship between the chairman and the National Statistician may change according to their personalities and how they work together. We all know that there has to be recognition of evolving change in those terms, but this board is like no other. We seek to create an effective board with the two key figures working together to reach the objectives for which it was established, but we recognise that the relationship between them may change over time. Of course the Government are committed to the governance structure established in the Bill, in which the single legal entity charged with delivering the functions in the Bill is the Statistics Board. The Bill provides for a single institutional structure with a board that is legally responsible and accountable for all the body’s functions in line with the principles of good corporate governance. The Bill establishes that the board will be a mix of executives and non-executives, although we are legislating to ensure that there is always a clear non-executive majority. We expect that the executive business of the board will be discharged by professionals, acting under the board’s direction, but the legal authority to act on behalf of the Statistics Board flows through the board, and it must therefore retain the authority to act in relation to matters for which it is accountable. As the noble Lord, Lord Moser, indicated, one aspect of that is its accountability to Parliament. This issue was mooted during the debate on the previous amendment. The noble Lords, Lord Jenkin and Lord Newby, referred to it with regard to statistics on migration, which are causing considerable public comment. If the board were in existence, the interest of Members of Parliament would force it to respond in the way that I have, in a most perfunctory fashion, sought to identify. I have no doubt that Parliament would expect the board to respond in a committed and effective way to a problem that arises. The model we are using is a straightforward one for the governance of public authorities. We believe that it is the most effective way to deliver greater independence for the Office for National Statistics and independent scrutiny and oversight of the statistical system as a whole, while avoiding the creation of competing centres of statistical expertise within it. The unitary structure is the right approach. That is why I have resisted amendments that would fracture the single structure and leave unclear who is legally accountable for the functions specified in the Bill. A mixed executive/non-executive board would no longer have the capacity to ensure the discharge of the functions for which we wish it to be responsible. All it would have the power to do is to monitor the National Statistician as he or she exercised those functions, and the National Statistician would be able to ignore any views the board might have about how its executive functions should be discharged. The burden of some of the amendments we have considered is to confine the role of the non-executives merely to monitoring, which would be a tremendous waste of the talent and experience that we intend them to bring to the board and to the statistical system as a whole. This is a standard approach in statutes that establish new legal entities. For example, the board follows the pattern of the Food Standards Agency, which was set up under the Food Standards Act. The non-ministerial department established in that Act consists of the 13 or so people who sit on its board. The board is charged with the responsibility for carrying out a range of functions, which those 13 people clearly do not have the capacity to do on their own. The Food Standards Act, like the Statistics and Registration Service Bill, provides a flexible framework. That framework enables the Food Standards Agency to discharge its functions, either through decisions at board level or through delegations to staff. That also applies in respect of taxation and the powers that are vested in the Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. I do not think that the model of unitary governance in the Bill leads to confusion. The arguments that have been put forward and amendments that have been tabled have obliged us to be more specific about several of those functions and I recognise that the House has made a considerable contribution to the most important feature of the Bill: the structure and responsibilities of the board and its operations.
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- Baroness NoakesConservative
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- My Lords, I thank the Minister for all those comments which will have put to rest some of the concerns that some people still have. I still think that the Government are muddled about what a unitary board is. When challenged on the idea of performance review, we were told that there is an element of review, but that there is also the head of the Civil Service. This board is not of the kind that has complete competence. I am not at all clear that all these issues are yet fully understood. Nevertheless, as I indicated in my opening remarks, we intend to support the Government’s amendments on this and hope that the muddle in the Bill does not affect the real world. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 7 [Objective]:
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- Baroness NoakesConservative
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- moved Amendment No. 3:
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- Lord NewbyLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, my name is attached to the amendment and I shall speak briefly to two aspects of it. The first is an aspect that we discussed under Amendment No. 1—statistics at levels lower than the national. We have had a good airing of that issue. In replying to Amendment No. 1, the Minister accepted the importance of statistics at those levels. He argued that Amendment No. 1 was not the best way of recognising that in the Bill. Given the importance of the issue, however, I hope that he can accept Amendment No. 3, because it is the only other way in which the Bill can refer to the importance of local statistics. The second, and final, aspect of the amendment about which I feel particularly strongly is the question of how we achieve high levels of public trust in statistics. At Second Reading, almost every speech referred at some length to the problems that have arisen in the way in which statistics have been used and the consequent falling levels of public trust. If one believes the statistic, well under 20 per cent of the population believes any figure that the Government publish. Therefore, requiring the board to think about specific activity that might help to restore faith in statistics would be very valuable. It is all very well producing statistics properly, but a proactive programme by the board to explain what it is doing and why statistics are being produced under its watch to the highest possible standard would be very worth while. Without that in the Bill, this area will, by definition, fall to the bottom of the list. As I said, the board needs a proactive policy to explain to the people of this country why they can again have a high level of trust in statistics. If my memory serves me correctly, the Government were equally keen to point out at Second Reading that restoring trust in statistics was the central purpose of the Bill, so I am sure that they will find it in themselves to accept the amendment.
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- Lord Jenkin of RodingConservative
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- My Lords, I hope that the Minister will accept my noble friend’s amendment. Both my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, have explained with considerable force why there is real advantage in spelling out the public good in the way in which the amendment does. I shall give two examples. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, and others have referred to the problem for local governments of the paucity of statistics on immigration and population movements. It is only a week or so since the House debated the report of our own Economic Affairs Select Committee, to which Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, gave some very disturbing evidence on the first day of evidence. On 31 October last year, which is some while back, he was challenged on why he found it so difficult to provide accurate forecasts. He said: “On the quantity side, the single biggest uncertainty is the size of the labour force. We just do not know how big the population of the United Kingdom is and, because the composition of the population and its split between different groups of workers, young versus old, migrant workers versus normally resident workers, has changed in recent years, it may well be that some of the statistics we are using are not giving a very accurate reading”. That puts it very modestly. I shall not read what he went on to say, but it is quite clear from that evidence and the Select Committee’s view of it that this is a very serious failure of the present system. The Bank is perhaps one of the most important users of statistics, and it is quite inadequate merely to wrap all this up in the phrase “the public good”. One could give other examples, but I would have thought it very valuable to add the words in my noble friend’s amendment about the users of statistics. I shall not repeat what I said at an earlier stage when I quoted from the Statistics Commission’s own report about the needs of users, because that is already on the record. Statistics are produced for the benefit of those who are going to use them. It is not an exercise conducted in vacuo and simply for someone to stand back and say, “This is for the public good”. The users have to develop policies and activities on the basis of the figures that the statisticians produce, which I would hope could be recognised.
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- Lord DearingCrossbench
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- My Lords, I support these two amendments. When I consider what is proposed and how the board might feel about it, I cannot think for a moment that the board would find it unduly onerous to be required to take into account the local level, as it is left to the board to define what is local, to what extent and how frequently. It is useful to include the provision. As I said previously, even if the effectiveness of expenditure can be increased by only 0.1 per cent, we are talking about a benefit of £100 million every year. That is very big money for very little. I cannot think of an easier way of raising the prospect of a gain of £100 million. As for the emphasis that the board will give, the Bill states that the board shall have a chairman and not fewer than five others; so the implication is that it will be a small board. Three of the others should be appointed having regard to a concern with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. On such a small board, it would be surprising if, with the national requirement and the needs of those three countries, the needs of local communities in England did not get decent weight. This is a desirable safeguard in view of the structure of the board itself. In the light of what I said about money and the Minister’s understanding of monetary matters, I hope that the Minister will be responsive.
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Lord ChorleyCrossbench- Quote
- My Lords, when I first saw this amendment, I wondered whether it was really necessary. The Minister may say, “Is not serving the public good sufficient?”. However, while listening to the discussion, in particular to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, I have become convinced that, given the history and background, it is important to have both belt and braces. That is what the amendment seeks. It would add braces to the belt, or whichever way round you prefer it. It would be helpful to have this amendment and I hope the Government will agree to it.
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- My Lords, as the objective set out in Clause 7 is the cornerstone of the Bill it is right that the House should subject it to the most robust debate, and the amendment raises important issues. The noble Lords who contributed to the debate emphasised the value of local-level statistics, the importance of meeting the needs of users, providing benefits for citizens and, of course, the crucial issue of public trust. The Government believe that the objective set out in the Bill should be succinct, broad and high-level. It is designed to make a clear statement of the overall purpose of the board. It is to “promote and safeguard” the quality, good practice and comprehensiveness of the official statistics that serve the public good. Clause 7 sets out the objective clearly, concisely and in an entirely appropriate way by covering the right ground in sufficient detail. I turn to the question of trust which the noble Baroness emphasised in her contribution was crucial. The amendment specifies, “achieving high levels of public trust in statistics”. One of the Government’s key aims in establishing this independent board is to improve the level of public trust in official statistics. That is the genesis of the Bill. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury has repeatedly made that point, as did I when the legislation first came before your Lordships’ House. As I argued in Committee, however, many factors outside the scope of the board’s responsibilities determine the level of trust in statistics and it would be an unrealistic obligation to put on the board in specific terms. When considering this issue at Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Moser, said that trust is a “complex matter”, and indeed it is. He observed that trust in statistics is part and parcel of trust in the Government themselves, and indeed in politicians in general. I am sure that we all recognise the truth of that remark. Levels of numeracy and people’s understanding of figures and statistics are likely to impact on people’s degree of scepticism or otherwise of official statistics. People’s individual experiences of issues presented at an aggregate level by statistics also play a part in their propensity to trust statistics. We know, for example, that the public perception of levels of crime does not mirror what often appears in crime statistics. How statistics are used and how they are presented to people, especially by the media, plays an important role in whether they trust public figures.
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- Lord Jenkin of RodingConservative
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- My Lords, as the noble Lord may remember, when I referred to the Bill at a much earlier stage—in the debate on the Queen’s Speech, I think—I drew attention to the report by Professor Adrian Smith on crime statistics, which the noble Lord has just mentioned. I think he now owes it to the House to tell us what the Government are going to do in response to Professor Smith’s report. It is perfectly clear that the definitions of crime and the use made of them are in fact misleading to the public. Far from being concerned with the public good, they do not actually serve the public good at all. Can the Minister respond?
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- My Lords, we are on Report. I am not prepared to go into a wide discourse now about a range of other issues related to this. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and other Members of the House brought the important issue of crime to my attention, but I was using it merely as an illustration of the problem. I am not going to open up a big discussion on crime rates and the degree of public trust in these issues. If I did, we would stray way beyond Report stage and our concentration on this amendment. I am talking only about one specific part of the amendment; namely, the level of public trust. The board has levers to achieve its objectives, but we cannot expect it to be responsible for meeting an obligation to enhance levels of public trust. There are simply too many other factors involved in the situation for the board to take that as a chief responsibility. The board’s objective rightly focuses on helping to deliver high-quality and comprehensive statistics that serve the public good. That is what we should expect of the board, and it is something the board can take a direct role in, using the functions assigned to it in the Bill. While I am sure the board will wish to undertake work to determine levels of public trust—to seek to understand better what causes levels of public trust to change and to play its part in helping to improve levels as necessary—that is not something that it alone can control. I am therefore resisting the crucial part of the amendment being included in the core objectives, which of course Clause 7 involves. I accept from the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, to whose arguments on this front I paid tribute earlier today, and from the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, who has emphasised this point again, that local statistics are important. I can reassure the House that the wording of the objective was drafted using the term “public policy” to encompass the fact that official statistics should play a role in supporting the evaluation of policy at all levels, be that local, regional, national or even international. Amendment No. 4 goes on further to specify that serving the public good should include, “meeting the information needs of users”. User needs are important, and the board’s objective already states that it is to promote and safeguard the quality, comprehensiveness and good practice of official statistics, including accessibility, relevance and coherence. In fulfilling that objective, clearly stated in Clause 7, the board will undoubtedly need to set up mechanisms to establish user interest and to set about addressing them. The amendment specifies producing benefits for citizens. As we have said repeatedly during the course of the Bill, one of the core reasons the Bill was amended in the other place was to make quite explicit the Government’s belief that official statistics exist to serve the public in the widest sense, not just to help the work of Government. I hope it will be recognised that the amendment identifies areas that the Government have thought about clearly and carefully and believe are included within the broad aims of Clause 7. We wish to defend the clause as being a realistic, proper and accurate definition of what the board should seek to achieve. For that reason, I hope the noble Baroness will be prepared to withdraw her amendment.
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- Baroness NoakesConservative
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- My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, and I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this interesting debate. I am of course disappointed, but perhaps not surprised, by what the Minister has said in response. He said that trust was a complex matter, and so should not be in the Bill. We think it is so important that it should be clear and visible for all to see, as one of the most important objectives that lie behind the Bill. My noble friend Lord Jenkin gave the very good example of the crime statistics and why we need the issue of public trust in the Bill. The Minister’s response to that was interesting: he said that the board was just going to concern itself with high-quality statistics, and that was the beginning and end of its role in that regard. We disagree: we think there are other aspects to public trust which, for example, underline the approach to pre-release which is embedded in the Bill that we will send to another place. It is also implicit in many of the other issues that we have debated in Committee, such as whether the Statistics Board should be commenting on the misinterpretation of statistics. Public trust goes way beyond simply putting out good-quality statistics. I shall not press my amendment today but I hope that those who become members of the Statistics Board take the trouble to read the deliberations of your Lordships' House to see what we believe they should be doing to ensure that public trust is achieved and that the needs of a much wider group than has hitherto been met by the ONS and other statistics will be at the heart of the board’s work. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 4 not moved.]
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Lord Howard of RisingConservative- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 5:
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- Lord Jenkin of RodingConservative
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- My Lords, I have sought to make these points at various stages of the Bill’s proceedings. On Second Reading, I drew the Government’s attention to the fact that the year 2000 framework had firmly placed an obligation on the chief statistician to engage in planning and on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to maintain and develop the co-ordination structure for national statistics. In Committee, I again drew the Minister’s attention to the fact that I had asked those questions. Why is there nothing in the Bill about either of those matters, both of which were part of the year 2000 framework? I have still not received an answer. If it is thought that they do not need to be put in the Bill because they will be done automatically, why were they specified in the 2000 framework? My noble friend’s amendment gives us an opportunity to repeat the questions. If these matters were thought important to make specific seven years ago, why are they not important enough to be made specific in the Bill?
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- Lord MoserCrossbench
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- My Lords, this is an important amendment, and I hope that the Minister will accept it. This legislation has had to face a fundamental problem from the very beginning; namely, that we have a decentralised system. One needs only to think how easy it would be if we had a single statistics office as is the case in most countries. Some of the problems that we have spent time discussing would not then arise; quite a few of them would be much easier to solve. However, our sticking, rightly, with a decentralised system is the reason for many of the problems that we have discussed. I have on one or two occasions tried to describe the double role that the National Statistician, and therefore the board, has. One job of the National Statistician is to run ONS—what used to be called the CSO—and provide leadership as director of a single office at the centre. It is an extremely important role. In her other job, the National Statistician is rightly to be held to account as adviser to the statisticians in all the other government departments and, in a sense, as having ultimate responsibility for anything that happens anywhere in government statistics. That was certainly the case in my time as director of the CSO. If there were problems in health statistics with which the Department of Health would not or could not deal, I was ultimately held responsible, and rightly so; and so it has remained throughout the years. The amendment touches not only on the geographical consistency that is obviously needed—it has been remarked on by other noble Lords—across regions, but also on the fact that we are part of an international statistical system. Many of our statistics have to relate to the UK—that has to be dealt with. The amendment would mean also that the National Statistician and her forces had a responsibility for helping to plan the system as a whole, covering all government departments. It is a difficult role, because one has to recognise that, in a decentralised system, there is obviously great power in the hands of Secretaries of State, Ministers and civil servants in the departments. It is a much more diplomatic, indirect role, but it is nevertheless the National Statistician’s responsibility. I had hoped from time to time that the National Statistician’s responsibility for the GSS as a whole would be formally recognised in the Bill. I understand that this has not happened for two reasons. The first is reluctance on the part of the draftsmen to recognise the GSS as a legal entity. I do not quite understand why that is such a problem. The other reason is that, in many departments, statistics are in the hands of people who are not part of the professional group of statisticians, which I understand. However, it makes acceptance of the amendment even more important, so that, in one way or another, all statistics are seen as a single system, though decentralised administratively.
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- Lord NewbyLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, I add one point to those already made, which relates to the second part of the amendment and, in particular, the issue of consistency across nations and regions. This is particularly important as nations and regions with their own assemblies or Parliaments adopt policies which differ from those that operate in England, so that in terms of student finance the Scottish system is increasingly divergent from the English system. On both sides of that Border and the other borders, the proponents of these systems engage in discussions as to which is preferable, which can take place on a sensible basis only if we can understand the statistical basis on which they are being undertaken and if we can compare like with like. My slight fear is that as policies diverge, the statistical bases for working out how successful those policies are or their consequences might diverge. The amendment would put a requirement on the board to ensure that those problems of interpretation between nations and regions are minimised.
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Lord Evans of Temple GuitingLabour- Quote
- My Lords, as we have heard, this amendment or ones like it have been discussed on many occasions and the Government’s view remains that the Bill already strikes the right balance between providing the board with a clear objective, and wide-ranging duties and powers to deliver on that, while at the same time giving that independent board—and this is a very important point—the flexibility to establish mechanisms, and determine what particular activities it will undertake to ensure that it is fulfilling those responsibilities. Amendment No. 5 would require the board to promote the co-ordination of planning for and production of official statistics and the production of official statistics that are consistent across all government departments and all parts of the United Kingdom. On the question of promoting consistency across the UK, the Government recognise that consistent UK-wide statistics are beneficial and desirable. Such consistency means that statistics about the devolved countries can be combined, allowing figures to be produced for the UK and allowing the situation in the different Administrations to be compared. I should therefore note how pleased the Government are that the devolved Administrations have all decided to join the new arrangements. However, some divergence in statistical outputs across the different parts of the UK is to be expected, given the different political, legal and administrative systems and policies across the four nations, many of which existed prior to devolution, which can limit the development of consistent statistics. For example, statistics on education are sometimes not consistent, reflecting the fact that Scottish educational qualifications differ from those in England. In addition, the countries have different characteristics, which can lead to the need for different classifications and definitions. For example, Scotland is less densely populated in parts than England, leading to a demand for a different statistical definition of what it means for an area to be called rural. This means that it may not always be appropriate or desirable that statistics be consistent. If any inconsistency has a material effect on the quality and relevance of the statistics being produced, the board already has mechanisms available to it to help address that. It can take such issues into account in the assessment of national statistics and as part of its wider duty to monitor the quality, comprehensiveness and good practice of official statistics, as set out in Clause 8. Clause 9 requires the board to develop, maintain and promote definitions, methodologies, classifications and standards for official statistics. We would expect that, when appropriate, and taking due account of the specific issues and needs of the different constituent parts of the UK, the board will promote consistent use of such definitions and classifications.
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- Lord Howard of RisingConservative
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- My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, even though I am afraid that I do not agree with what he said about the balance being right. Amendment No. 5 would have allowed flexibility while promoting consistency. I do not wish to press the amendment and I beg leave to withdraw it. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 10 [Code of Practice for National Statistics]:
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 6:
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- Baroness NoakesConservative
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- My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these amendments and for listening to the proceedings in your Lordships’ House at Second Reading and in Committee. This group contains a number of amendments tabled in my name and in those of other noble Lords. The Minister will be aware that we tabled them prior to the Government tabling theirs, and I should say at the outset that I do not intend to move the amendments that stand in my name or to oppose the government amendments. However, we hope that there may be a little reflection by the Government between now and Third Reading on one or two aspects. Perhaps I may deal with those. The first is that Amendment No. 11 would describe the code as applying just to “statistics”. We did not like the fact that it would apply just to national statistics, and that is why, in our amendment, we propose that it should apply to official statistics, which are now defined in the Bill. 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. Perhaps the Minister will deal with that point when he replies. The second point concerns compliance with the code. The Minister will be aware—he referred to it—that that was one of the very important issues that we debated at some length in Committee. The Royal Statistical Society and the Statistics Commission were united with us against the Government’s position on this matter. The Government have already created a duty of compliance for national statistics, so that leaves open the possibility of government departments keeping their statistics out of the national statistics net if they want to cheat on the rules. I know that there are some mechanisms for doing so and I shall come to those in a minute. We think that that is undesirable. The duty to comply should be more widely drawn and should not relate only to statistics that happen already to have been brought within the national statistics assessment process. I have tabled Amendment No. 16, which deletes the words “but no action shall lie in relation to any such failure”, as an amendment to Amendment No. 15, to probe what the Government intend by those words. The Minister said that the intention was that no legal action should lie in relation to non-compliance. I wanted to ensure that the Minister was entirely content and desired the Statistics Board to take action in the sense of shouting loudly and often about non-compliance. We accept that legal action would be inappropriate, but the other subtle ways of bringing pressure to bear on non-compliers is particularly important. That brings us to the new procedure and duty in Amendment No. 22. As the Minister knows, we would have preferred assessment to be in the hands of the board. We regard the Minister's Amendment No. 22 procedure as a naming and shaming provision because it will ensure that the board looks at those cases of statistics that have not come forward for national statistics assessment and name them if they are inappropriate to that category. We are certainly happy to support that and I hope that the result will be that the majority of statistics, certainly all those that have any significance, will be national statistics within a relatively short period of time. With those remarks, I reiterate that we are happy to support the Government's amendments.
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- Lord NewbyLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, like the noble Baroness, we are grateful to the Government for having listened to the debate in Committee and for making these changes. They deal more comprehensively with the problems that we have identified than the amendments on the muddle, which we discussed before. Therefore, we are grateful for them. However, I still think we have in place an extremely cumbersome system for dealing with what might be perceived as a problem by the board on one single set of statistics. The board has to apply to the Minister, saying, in effect, “Please can we designate these as national statistics so that we can look at them?”. For example, last week for the second time, MORI had a Market Research Society decision against it in terms of the way in which statistics, which it had produced for DCMS on live music venues, had been used by DCMS. The argument was that DCMS had misrepresented what MORI had done. The Market Research Society found against MORI, at which point DCMS refused to accept the finding or to do anything about it. When the Bill, if amended as proposed, comes into force—perhaps the Minister can confirm whether I am right about this—and the Statistics Board hears about such a situation, it may think that is not very satisfactory and that the statistics are not national statistics—I would be amazed if they were. Under Clause 22, the board would go to the appropriate Minister at the DCMS and say, “Please, we would like to make a request that these be recategorised as national statistics so that we can assess them to see whether we agree with the Market Research Society”. The Minister may or may not agree; the Bill sets out what happens in those circumstances. That is pretty inflexible. Without going through the formal procedure, which requires statements to Parliament and heaven knows what, the board should be able to have a quick look at how DCMS dealt with the statistics. If necessary, there would be a rap over the knuckles and it would be dealt with quickly, expeditiously and, I hope, flexibly. My slight concern is that the Statistics Board will decide in a number of cases that it is not worth its while going through the cumbersome procedure in the Bill, because the statistics questioned are not hugely significant. I therefore have some questions about whether that is an overcumbersome way of dealing with the problem, but I shall come on a later amendment to another way in which the board might be able to deal with such “rap on the knuckle” instances. My second question about Amendment No. 22 related to what seemed to be asymmetry of approach between UK statistics and those produced by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Under the proposed new clause: “Where the appropriate authority is a Minister of the Crown, the Board must lay ... its notification ... before Parliament”, and when he responds the Minister has to lay a copy of his statement before Parliament. If the Minister is not a Minister of the Crown in the UK but a Scottish, Welsh or Northern Ireland Minister in the devolved Administrations, there is no provision in the Bill about what the board does. It does not have to lay anything before the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or the Northern Ireland Assembly. Equally, the relevant Ministers in those three jurisdictions do not have to make a statement in response to their legislative bodies. Therefore, there seems to be a lot less scrutiny and accountability in respect of statistics produced in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland than in UK-wide statistics. Given that the amendments have been produced relatively recently, I suspect that this is just a gap in the drafting, but I hope that the Minister can reassure me that that disparity of treatment will be rectified at Third Reading. As the noble Baroness said, we welcome the spirit of the Government’s amendments in this group and will support them.
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- Lord TurnbullCrossbench
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- My Lords, in the original Bill, there were two defects. The first was that the concept of national statistics and the code of practice were made coterminous, so if a series was not in national statistics—because it either had never been there or had been de-designated—it was outside the code, including provisions such as confidentiality. That made no sense, and I welcome the separation of the two concepts. I rather support those who prefer “code of official statistics”; it makes more sense and is more accurate. In the stages that remain, I hope that that can somehow be introduced. The second defect was that there was a voluntary system in which the right of initiative as to whether something had the status of national statistics lay entirely with Ministers. If something was outside that status and other people thought that it should be inside, there was very little that could be done about it. Now there is a mechanism that enables the board to express its dissatisfaction, so that something that should be in the higher tier of quality could be brought into it. I agree that it is a rather cumbersome mechanism, but it would not work exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, suggests. If the board is dissatisfied with something, it will investigate it, and its case as to why something should be placed into the higher tier will be made on the basis of some research. I welcome the reconstruction of the amendments. I am not sure that I would have done it exactly in this way, as I would have placed a duty on the board to assess the quality of statistics, and to have a rolling programme to do so on which it would decide. I do not think that it is necessary to have the sharp distinction, or that the de-designation mechanism will ever work. If something is important enough to be in national statistics, such as crime statistics, no one will ever say, “We will put this into a lower category”. The pressure will be to improve it and retain its status. Nevertheless, where we are left is a great deal better than where we started.
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- Lord Jenkin of RodingConservative
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- My Lords, I add my thanks for the amendments tabled by the Government, which go a long way to meet the concerns expressed in this House and in another place during earlier stages of the Bill. Like my noble friend Lady Noakes, I am puzzled by Amendment No. 6, which takes out the word “national” and leaves “statistics” because the Bill cannot cover statistics that are produced outside the machinery of government. The amendment tabled by the Opposition, Amendment No. 7, replaces “national” with “official”, which makes it clear that we are talking about official statistics. Perhaps the Minister will respond to that. The Minister made it clear that he expects that most statistics will become national statistics in due course by qualifying through the process of assessment to be accepted by the board. He suggested that the failure of a set of statistics to qualify as official national statistics would operate as a condign punishment of some sort. I think that it will be the other way round and that a lot of departments will fight against their statistics becoming national statistics. They will want to retain their statistics as official statistics, which do not receive the same degree of scrutiny. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that the proposals appear quite complicated. It may well be that the board will have the power to make sure that the process can continue. However, the idea that departments will feel under pressure to have their statistics upgraded to national statistics does not seem to represent the reality of what the Minister described at an earlier stage as a process of negotiation between the Treasury and other departmental Ministers. In the Government’s determination to preserve two grades of statistics—national and other official statistics—I detect that that argument continues and that the Treasury would like to see all official statistics as national statistics, but other departments have refused to agree. If that is the position, I am not convinced that this process will mean that all statistics will become national statistics within a short while, as the Minister suggested.
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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove BayNon-affiliated- Quote
- My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, is right on that last point. In my experience in the Home Office many years ago, we were certainly keen to keep as many statistics and bits of information down at our level as we possibly could. The Minister said that something was “future proofed”. Can he help me by telling me what that means in English?
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- Lord MoserCrossbench
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- My Lords, I rise only because I fussed about this point at every stage of the Bill. My reactions are the same as those of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, and I am grateful to the Government for taking this step, although it is a bit complex.
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. I think we are reaching a broad measure of agreement about the way in which we should go forward. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, whenever the words “future proof” occur, I give an involuntary shudder. However, I shall defend our position on this because we did not want to give an illustration or a definition of the borderline between national statistics and official statistics that acted as a complete barrier to movement. We are all too well aware that that definition is in the process of change—as I speak I have no doubt. Certainly, on future developments we have to assume that whole ranges of statistics that emerge obtain a salience which requires them to meet the full rigour of the code of practice and sanction and be included within national statistics. That was the only point on future proof. We would hope that the structure had sufficient malleability about it so that statistics could move from one category to another. The other point that has emerged in this short debate is the crucial stance of the Government that there has to be a barrier between national and official statistics. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, says that this strategy may not work. He is right that this is a process of discussion and debate between government departments, the National Statistician and the Office for National Statistics. That goes without saying. And it will be with the board. The reason we want the board is to reinforce the National Statistician’s position regarding the control of these statistics and to challenge departments and other bodies which produce official statistics about their quality. Of course there will be give and take on this matter and none of that can be laid down in statute. The point I seek to make, which was reflected on by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, in his contribution, is that of course there will be other measures from the board denying the status of a national statistic to any statistic which is produced outwith the code. Of course there will be other sanctions and warnings. Ministers will be under very considerable pressure if the suggestion is that the basis on which they are formulating policy is faulty statistics which do not comply with the code. It is quite clear that most of the time the board will be drawing anxieties to Ministers’ attention to improve performance to guarantee that the code is complied with. That is how government works and how we would expect it to work in a mature society. However, in law we have to have some form of sanction. We cannot say that the process will be of people necessarily agreeing to a common standard. That is why we have the sanction and why the sanction, so being applied, involves such work for the board that we could not possibly say that it can apply this sanction across the whole range of official statistics. We are saying that it can apply the sanction for national statistics and it can begin the process of demanding that certain statistics are of such import that they need to be brought within this framework. Pressure is put on departments accordingly. I do not underestimate the difficulty of the board’s work. That is why, if noble Lords do not mind my saying so, we all respect the role of the National Statistician, who will be chief executive of the board. Even working three days a week, the chairman of the board will be a pretty substantial figure and will command a fairly reasonable rate of remuneration. We recognise that we are creating a body with very formidable duties, not ones which are easy application of rules but ones which involve substantial interaction with powerful producers. I never underestimate the significance of government departments in looking after their own interests in these terms; neither does anyone in this House, least of all the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, who has repeatedly pointed that out to me during the course of proceedings on the Bill. I emphasise again that, first, we seek to produce some fluidity whereby those statistics that are included in national statistics can change over time. Secondly, in order to be within that framework, there is a significant sanction. To have that sanction, we need a differentiation between national statistics, which can be subject to such sanction and official statistics, which are too numerous for the board to be able to enforce compliance. Nevertheless, the board is establishing a code of practice that it will expect to be the lode star to which all official statistics aspire. It will set standards that will be mandatory on all categories of national statistics but will also be the guide for all official statistics that are intended to have national approval. The process of sanction will not often, if at all, be as crude as the sanction in the Bill. Ministers will be all too conscious of the fact that serious bad publicity will attend them if they are guilty of basing their policies on statistics which, in the board's opinion, fall short of the code. That sanction will apply long before the actual sanction in the Bill, which is also necessary. If the department does not measure up, such statistics would lose their status. The implications for Parliament and the wider public would be bound to be very significant.
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- Baroness NoakesConservative
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- My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, 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 to we know not where.
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- 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 ought to obtain with certain other statistics which may not be official but nevertheless may be of significance to the public realm. The board will be looked to to set the standard by which everything else is judged.
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- Lord NewbyLiberal Democrat
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- 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?
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- My Lords, the issue of national statistics—official statistics which are largely the statistics of governmental bodies. 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. On Question, amendment agreed to. [Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 not moved.] Clause 11 [Assessment]: [Amendment No. 9 not moved.]
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 10:
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 15:
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 17:
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 22:
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- Baroness NoakesConservative
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- moved Amendment No. 23:
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Lord Lea of CrondallNon-affiliated- Quote
- My Lords, as this is my sole contribution to our debates on Report, I trust that the House will indulge me if I paint a fairly wide canvas. I hope that the self-evident merits of Amendment No. 24 will, on reflection, have become apparent to the Minister and his colleagues in the Government. I shall return to the substance of the matter in a moment and I trust that it will receive a favourable response. The other reason I would far rather avoid the need to divide the House is that if this amendment were carried because the Government could not meet my modest points and they lost the vote, they would be tempted to characterise, if not caricature, what people like me were arguing; namely, that this is all about people not wanting to be sent to Newport, rather like people in Moscow after the revolution in 1826 not wanting to be sent to Siberia. I have some numbers. Kursk was not two hours from Moscow; until recently, it was two weeks and before that it was two months. Wearing my TUC liaison hat for a moment, I assure the House that our three affiliates—the FDA, the First Division Association of senior civil servants; Prospect, the professional civil servants union; and PCS, the largest Civil Service union—are not centring on that point and the amendment, of which of course they have knowledge, makes that absolutely clear. Perhaps I may summarise Amendment No. 24, which states: “The Board may locate its statistical activities in any place within the United Kingdom which it thinks necessary or expedient for the exercise of its functions”. The reasons it might have in mind are to do with recruitment and retention, “effective contacts with users of statistics, in particular within central government”, and, “maintain the influence of official statistics on policy”. Perhaps my noble friend will comment on whether there is anything with which he disagrees on those points. The amendment can be characterised more fairly as simply codifying common sense. The ONS Relocation Business Case, a year ago, analysed what are objectively quite obvious pros and cons in all the scenarios ranging from, more or less, a 100 per cent move to something far less than that. It includes consideration of the geographical dimension and separation, along with the opposite argument that computers now make geography totally irrelevant. Just to remind ourselves of the scenarios that the ONS Relocation Business Case looked at, Option A states: “Maintain London workforce at 2008 reduced level to around 300 staff”. Option B states: “Reduce workforce based in London to around 100 key staff”. Option C states: “Maintain minimal presence in London with a ‘consular’ type of office presence”. A further option states: “Accelerate the plan: complete all relocation activity by 2008”, and, “Meet the target plan: complete all relocation activity by 2010”. As I understand it, there are 1,200 staff in Newport and 600 left in London. Perhaps my noble friend will correct me if those numbers are wrong. Since our very interesting debate early in May, there has been an important interchange in the Financial Times where people have given different points of view. Karen Dunnell, director of ONS, has given evidence to the Treasury Select Committee and has written an article in the Financial Times in answer to some earlier briefing. Incidentally, that briefing included on-the-record expressions of concern from the Bank of England, to which I shall come back. Among other things, Karen Dunnell said: “We have timetabled the moves to allow the most time to relocate areas that contain more specialist expertise. So, for example, national accounts staff are likely to form the majority of London-based staff in 2010”. I could say rather pedantically that that is the same as saying, “There are only 10 left in London, and six of them deal with the national accounts”. One has to be clear about the time-scale here, although I am sure that Karen Dunnell would not have written those words without a bit of steering from the Treasury, given that at present the ONS is obviously under its thumb. You would not think that there was a Statistics Commission expressing any views about these matters at all. Given the cul-de-sac the Government found themselves going down in May, some of us have had contact not only with the trade unions, but also with my noble friend Lord Davies of Oldham, whom I applaud for the courtesy he has shown. I have also been holding further talks with the First Division Association and others, and I hope and believe that there has been some movement. I now wish to summarise where I think we are and ask my noble friend to confirm my understanding. I have before me a table given to the unions last week. It is in the public domain, I checked that, and shows two pieces of arithmetic that are worth quoting. On the last occasion, I talked about the central importance in Whitehall of the national income statistics produced by the National Accounts Group. The numbers now given to the unions show that London posts in April 2008 will be 118 staff in the group; London to Newport 2008-09, 35; and London to Newport 2009-10, 16. If you add 35 and 16, it comes to 51, which when subtracted from 118 will mean 67 staff left in London. So the question is: is that it in 2010, or will there still be an escalator going down? I think that the Government are now saying that that is it, in the sense that there is certainly no escalator. For different reasons, we could look at another set of statistics for the total picture, but given that the House may have a limited capacity to digest statistics, perhaps I should concentrate on the National Accounts Group. Can my noble friend assure me that the earlier picture which everyone was led to believe reflected the Government’s real intention and understanding of only a small consular rump left in London remains in place and confirm that the 65 staff do not have an automatic guillotine hanging over their heads? That leads to the overlapping but longer-term question of how far the new board will simply continue under the thumb of the Treasury. I am aware that this has been debated in the Cabinet Office, but the main point is that the Treasury cannot go on having its cake and eating it. It always controls resources directly. The problem is not just the overall control of resources, but also the contradiction that this relates to two even more important questions: the perception and actuality of the independence of the board, and the credibility to other people. I shall mention the Bank of England again in a minute.
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- Lord Evans of Temple GuitingLabour
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- My Lords, I am extremely sorry to interrupt my noble friend, but we are talking about the location of the statistical board, not its relationship with the Treasury. We are on Report, and I would be grateful if my noble friend could direct himself to the amendment he has tabled.
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- Lord Lea of CrondallNon-affiliated
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- My Lords, I am sorry to disagree with my noble friend on the Front Bench, but we are debating a group of amendments. I have agreed to put my amendment in the group. I have not been speaking directly to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, so I am saving the time of the House. I am only speaking once in this debate, and I have been very helpful to my noble friends. I think that remark was out of order. I am coming fairly near to the conclusion of my remarks. There are enormously important reasons why the ONS needs to regain its reputation for independence. The challenges facing statisticians at present are unprecedented. There is the example of the earnings index. I am still not clear how far that is to do with checking medians versus averages, taking into account City bonuses, equity gains and so on, but there is an issue there. Although the Bank of England ought to look at the mote in its own eye before criticising the ONS, it has said that, “the relocation programme poses a serious risk to the maintenance of the quality of macro-economic data”. Does my noble friend believe that the Bank’s anxieties have now been laid to rest? If so, can he draw my attention to the chapter and verse where it has said so? Will my noble friend confirm that there has been movement on the two key points that I have put to him? If he meets them in terms, I will not seek to divide the House. I will of course judge that when I have heard his response.
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- Lord NewbyLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, in an ideal world, both amendments would be unnecessary. The first deals with resources and the second with relocation, but they are linked, because with the relocation comes a cut in the resources available to the ONS. On Amendment No. 23, I reiterate the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, which we have raised in the past. The Minister said that the amendment, or something like it, was unnecessary because the ONS had a five-year settlement. As the noble Baroness said, if the settlement is unsatisfactory, the fact that the ONS is saddled with it for five years is a demerit rather than something from which to take any satisfaction. Amendment No. 24, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, should be unnecessary. However, all those who have looked at the way in which the relocation has been handled, whether it is the unions or the Bank of England, have been very concerned that it has been done so badly that the key economic statistics produced by the ONS have been put in jeopardy. Like the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, we are looking for reassurance from the Minister that the Government and the ONS have taken notice of what has been said and that the speed with which the relocation is taking place has been moderated to be certain that key economic and social statistics have not been jeopardised in the mean time.
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Lord NorthbrookNon-affiliated- Quote
- My Lords, I support both these important amendments. With regard to paragraphs (a) and (b) of Amendment No. 23, in the name of my noble friend Lady Noakes, it is important that the board is happy that the resources available to it are adequate, particularly if there are problems in the first year. Resources should be adequate over the five years, and the board should have the ability to say when they have not been. On the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, despite the Minister trying to impress on us the charms of Newport, if the board is unable to get the staff required there, it should have the flexibility to locate them in such other places as may be appropriate.
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Viscount EcclesConservative- Quote
- My Lords, I ask the Minister to address the point about adequate resources in a slightly different way. The future is more important than the past and the Bill is intended to create a new set of circumstances, which it will. The independence of the board is at the heart of the Government’s endeavour. No doubt, under the funding agreement, terms and conditions will be set. If they are set in a certain way, the resources may turn out to be adequate but if they are set in another way, they may turn out to be inadequate. I have in mind the regime within funding agreements of core targets and performance indicators and everything that can be included in such a regime. It is probably true that the Government are moving away from what has on many occasions been rather a heavy-handed approach to the terms on which public bodies should be funded towards a light-touch approach. I should be most grateful if the Minister could assure the House that we are talking about true independence, a light touch and not too many core targets and performance indicators in the future.
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- My Lords, in seeking to reassure the noble Viscount on that last point, I wish to avoid going into too much detail on the annual report which the board has to make. That is the burden of Amendment No. 23, which I hope the noble Baroness will withdraw. To what extent should we prescribe in legislation specific aspects of the board’s activity? The noble Lord quite rightly asked why we should not have a light touch. I cannot think of a heavier touch than prescribing in considerable detail in legislation exactly what the board must do. As I have emphasised in the past, our purpose is to create an independent board. It seems a little odd, then, that we should write into the statute detailed, specific information that the board should include in its annual report beyond what we already have. The board will recognise its responsibility—it is publicly accountable. It knows what it will have to identify in broad terms to the wider public and to Parliament. What should be resisted is excessive prescription in these terms, as the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, enjoined me to do. A major part of the board’s activities will be monitoring the quality and comprehensiveness of, and good practice in, official statistics under the wide-ranging powers that it already has under Clause 8. Under them, it can report on matters of funding and resources. In monitoring and reporting on the quality and comprehensiveness of, and good practice in, statistics, the board will be able to comment on all issues that it considers help determine quality and comprehensiveness. Clearly, financial and staff resources will often be relevant factors, and the board will comment on them. If the board was of the view that statistical quality had been badly affected by insufficient resources being devoted to the production of certain statistics, it could comment publicly to that effect. I assume that it would do so as it is clearly its role. I make it clear that we would expect Parliament also to play a full part in examining the resources of the board and others who produce official statistics, including identifying any concerns that it may have, and holding to account those responsible for making decisions on the allocation of resources. The Bill therefore places on the board obligations with regard to resources and its powers and we do not need further definition. Grouped with the noble Baroness’s Amendment No. 23 is Amendment No. 24 tabled by my noble friend Lord Lea. I recognise that the location of the ONS has been a matter of some controversy and that this House, the other place and those elsewhere have concerns about the impact on staff, the quality of statistics and the links between statisticians and users of statistics in London. Let us recognise that the ONS is not unique in relocating work. Relocation is a cross-government initiative intended to move 20,000 jobs outside of the south-east. The vast majority of Members who speak in this House, and certainly of those who speak in the other place, are generally of the view that relocation is a good idea in broad terms to reduce overheating in the south-east, to spread jobs more widely in the country and to promote a degree of regional policy, but as soon as any particular case emerges, it is argued that the department and function concerned ought not to move. This move has been going on for a considerable time. We are not in the early stages, but more than halfway through. I can confirm my noble friend’s statistics: there are now 1,200 staff of the ONS in Newport and about 600 in London. That is just about right. He was right also that the numbers going to Newport will increase and that the numbers remaining in London will decrease. I can confirm to him that about 50 to 100 staff will remain in London in 2010. They will be there for essential operational need. As he emphasised, it is expected that national accounts staff are likely to form the majority of London-based staff in 2010 because of the significance of their role, which he described to the House. Of course, he is right that the board can at any point make the case for retaining more staff in London. If it feels that there is an essential operational need for that, that will be its decision.
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- Lord Lea of CrondallNon-affiliated
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- My Lords, we have listened to my noble friend’s overkill on how we perceive the location question. I asked a question about the Bank of England. There are quite serious concerns. Is everything in the garden lovely now? Can he draw to my attention where the Bank of England has hadits problems, which—I say to my noble friend the Whip—do refer to location, and say that they have been dealt with?
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- My Lords, I did refer to that in broad terms. Of course the move is causing some difficulty and anxiety; it is bound to. The Bank of England speaking up in those terms gives a salutary warning to the Office for National Statistics that it must preserve the quality of its work while effecting this change, as it has undertaken to do.
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- Baroness NoakesConservative
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- My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, “The amendments are unnecessary—but”. The “but” is important. Great concerns have been expressed not only about the generic issue of resources, which is addressed by my amendment, but about the specifics of the relocation to Newport, which is addressed by the noble Lord, Lord Lea, in his amendment. To paraphrase what the Minister said: “We told you all along that the Statistics Board was going to be a great, independent and free-standing body. But that only applies when we choose it to be so, because we will interfere whenever we want to, because it is a government body”. I hope that those who seek to become involved in the Statistics Board understand the rules of the game that the Minister has outlined. The board will have one way in particular of expressing itself, which is its annual report. The Minister said that it could cover resources; I hope it does. I hope it covers any other aspect where the board is dissatisfied with the way in which the Government are trying to stop it acting in the way it thinks right for its work of producing good quality statistics, whether it be forced relocations or any other aspect of government policy. I hope that the Statistics Board will read the debates that we have had and be encouraged by the fact that we want to keep these things in the public domain and not hidden behind closed doors in the Treasury. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 24 not moved.]
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- Baroness NoakesConservative
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- moved Amendment No. 25:
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- Lord MoserCrossbench
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- My Lords, I speak only because my name was mentioned. It is true that in my day the role of the post of what is now called the National Statistician—then the director of the Central Statistical Office—came directly under the Prime Minister. I was directly responsible to the Prime Minister, and this was real. I served three Prime Ministers, all of whom took a direct interest. Although I need hardly say that the link was encouraging, its importance was not so much personal as the fact that—because we had a decentralised system, to which we have referred at various times—if there were problems with statistics in other departments and the National Statistician found it difficult to deal with them, the post had the Prime Minister directly behind it. That was invaluable. It made the running of a decentralised system much easier than it might otherwise have been. In the other amendment, which is now part of the Bill, the so-called residual responsibilities would move anyhow from the Treasury to the Cabinet Office, and therefore, with that direct link, through the Cabinet Secretary to the Prime Minister. That would ensure the link anyhow. But just in case that amendment does not commend itself to the House of Commons, or to us if it returns here, I support this amendment.
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- My Lords, the amendment seeks to establish that the National Statistician will have direct access to the Prime Minister on any matter involving the integrity of official statistics or a dispute with a government department regarding official statistics. As I said in Committee, the National Statistician, through the Cabinet Secretary, already has that right of access under the present framework for national statistics. We intend to carry this forward; we just do not consider it necessary or appropriate to put on the face of the Bill. It is not in statute at present and we do not intend to put it in statute now. I remind the House of the status of the National Statistician which will be established by the Bill if and when it becomes an Act. The post will be statutory. He or she will be the head of the executive office in the same way as the current head of the Office for National Statistics, reporting in the future to a board instead of Ministers. The post will be a Crown appointment, provided for by Clause 5, and the holder will be a full member of the board, sharing responsibility with other board members for ultimate decision-making and its chief executive. The answer to the noble Baroness’s query on that is straightforward. The National Statistician will take primary responsibility for the integrity of national statistics in any discussions with government departments or others. Clause 27 states that the National Statistician is also the chief statistical adviser to the board on all professional and technical statistical matters—we are reinforcing that status today—and he or she will remain the head of the Government Statistical Service and the Government’s chief statistical adviser, providing leadership to the professional statisticians in government. The noble Lord, Lord Moser, discussed the crucial responsibilities involved.
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- Baroness NoakesConservative
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- My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moser, for taking part in this debate. I hear what the Minister said; it is a pity that he has again reiterated the formula that access is via the Cabinet Secretary and not direct to the Prime Minister. Towards the end of his remarks, he pointed to the ability of the board to comment publicly. We are starting to think that about the only weapon in the board’s armoury against any forces of evil that still stalk Whitehall will be its ability to report publicly. We hope that it will use that judiciously. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 27 [National Statistician: advisory functions]:
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- Lord NewbyLiberal Democrat
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- moved Amendment No. 26:
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- Lord Howard of RisingConservative
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- My Lords, we continue to support this amendment and hope that the Government will consider carefully the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Newby. Government Amendment No. 32 makes it clear that the National Statistician is to be responsible for official statistics standards. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, will establish the National Statistician as the proper channel for communicating these standards to the Government and to the wider statistical industry. The National Statistician is the right person to undertake this responsibility.
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for speaking to this amendment, although the previous debate probably covered a great deal of the ground in question. Of course, we appreciate the sentiment behind the amendment but we consider that the Bill already provides for the effect that it seeks to achieve. As I said in the previous debate, we are giving the National Statistician a position of unique significance compared with other leading professionals within government, and that difference is set out in statute. The Bill is clear on the National Statistician’s professional competence. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, agreed that it was “obvious” that the National Statistician would be the Government’s principal adviser on statistics. He was right in Committee and we agree with him, but the arguments are worth repeating here for the sake of clarity. I emphasise that the board is the legal entity. However, in practice, the National Statistician, as the professional head of the Government Statistical Service, will be the point of professional advice, either through statisticians in departments or formally, because of its legal personality and accountability, via the board itself. This is already clear at Clauses 8, 9 and 27 of the Bill. Clause 8 provides that the board may report any concerns that it has about the quality of any official statistics, good practice in relation to them or their comprehensiveness to the person responsible for producing those statistics. That gives the board a very large remit to advise government on a wide range of issues relating to official statistics. Clause 9 gives the board a remit to develop and maintain definitions, methodologies, classifications and standards for official statistics. Following on from this, under Clause 27, the National Statistician is explicitly the board’s chief adviser on all professional and technical statistical matters. Indeed, the board must publish and report to Parliament, including giving reasons for overruling the National Statistician on professional, technical matters, if it does so. The Government are further reinforcing the National Statistician’s role with the amendments that we are moving today. They will provide further clarity and transparency in relation to the functions of the executive office, underlining the National Statistician’s professional status by ensuring that he or she is responsible for the development and maintenance of definitions, methodologies, classifications and standards for official statistics, wherever produced. Amendment No. 26 would require the National Statistician to provide professional leadership to all persons in government engaged in the production or release of statistics. Inevitably, given the status of the National Statistician within the Bill, they will have to fulfil that role. In this capacity, as has already been said, we intend for the National Statistician to remain as the head of the Government Statistical Service and continue to provide professional leadership to those working on statistics in government. We have, however, chosen to retain the decentralised statistical system, and this decision has been widely supported, including in the other place by the Treasury Select Committee. A decentralised system inevitably means that statisticians remain working within government departments. It is not appropriate to legislate within the Civil Service structure for lines of accountability between staff working in departments and the National Statistician working in another department. The amendment would establish a relationship between the National Statistician and statisticians working in departments that would not be workable under our decentralised system. Given, as I indicated, that the National Statistician’s role as chief statistical adviser to departments via the board is clearly established in the clauses identified in the Bill, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
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- Lord NewbyLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, I hope the Minister will not object too strongly if I completely disagree with his last point. If he agrees with the content of the amendment—which, in terms, he has—how can he then argue that it would be completely inappropriate to pass the amendment? The only argument with which I have some sympathy is that the point is so blindingly obvious that the amendment should not be necessary. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 28 [National Statistician: executive functions]:
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- moved Amendment No. 27:
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- moved Amendments Nos. 29 to 32:
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 33:
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- moved Amendments Nos. 34 and 35:
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 36:
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- Baroness NoakesConservative
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- moved Amendment No. 37:
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The Earl of ErrollCrossbench- Quote
- My Lords, I support this extremely important proposed new clause. One of the major problems that is starting to arise in discussions in the information security world is that, although the Government are using the Information Commissioner in Bills as a safeguard, he does not often have the powers to act as one because of his not being allowed to go into a company unless he is asked to, as a result of either a complaint or the data controller asking him in. That means that people can ride roughshod over and go round the Data Protection Act and all the other Acts in which he is supposed to be the check, without let or hindrance unless such a complaint is made. Often it is not, because people do not know how or where to do it. Also, the penalties that the Information Commissioner can ask for are far too low. That is a completely separate subject, but it needs to be looked at in the near future so I add that comment now. We have to look at making him a much more effective safeguard. The proposed new clause starts on that path and it is essential that we agree to it.
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- My Lords, we must be getting near the end of Report if the noble Baroness can refer to any part of it as a teddy bears’ picnic; that has been far from my experience with regard to our debates on these important issues in the Bill’s progress through your Lordships' House. The Information Commissioner has raised no issues concerning this legislation. To the contrary, he has been very positive about it. That should considerably reassure all noble Lords. I wish to emphasise again what I said in Committee on this important point. Not everything that I say in Committee is always expressed with such graphic intensity that I deserve to be held to every line of it on every subsequent occasion, but the section that the noble Baroness quoted was a categoric statement of the Government’s position on the Bill. As I said at Second Reading, overall the Information Commissioner has welcomed the fact that the Bill recognises the importance of ensuring that personal information is used only where necessary, and that confidentiality is respected. He very much welcomed the creation of a criminal offence for the illegal disclosure of personal information in Clause 36, which he believes should act as the significant deterrent. Information held by the board will be used only for statistical purposes—I emphasise that again—as all the board’s functions are of course statistical. Furthermore, personal information held by the board will be protected against unlawful disclosure by a criminal sanction. Given the nature of the data-sharing provisions in the Bill and the powers that the Information Commissioner already has, it does not seem appropriate to include such an amendment. That is the basic reason why the amendment, although well intentioned, is unnecessary. There are several further reasons for not accepting this amendment. First, we think it unlikely that the Information Commissioner would need to use the powers in this clause. Given that much statistical information is given voluntarily through surveys, the board has a strong interest in ensuring that the confidentiality of the information is held secure and that people trust the board to hold its information. The ONS has a good working relationship with the Information Commissioner and often asks his or his office’s advice on matters relating to the protection and handling of information, so previous practice is a guide to future conduct. Secondly, I should note that the Data Protection Act applies to the board as a body dealing with personal information. The board must therefore be registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner and comply with the data principles in relation to all personal data with respect to which it is the data controller. Finally, the Information Commissioner already has statutory powers to undertake the activities set out in this amendment. The noble Baroness raised an important point about the Bill. In doing so, she sought assurances that what was said in Committee is definitive, and I confirm that it is. I emphasise that the data-sharing clauses in the Bill are for statistical purposes only. It is not the Government’s intention that the board will be a conduit for information across government. That is the definitive government policy. I hope that the noble Baroness will accept that statement and withdraw the amendment.
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- Baroness NoakesConservative
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- My Lords, I thank the Minister for that statement and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, for his comments. I am grateful to the Minister for reiterating the important points that came out of our debates in Committee, which was very useful. However, he said that the Information Commissioner already has statutory powers to undertake activities that are covered by the amendment. My understanding is that that is not the case. With that lack of clarity, it would not be right for me to press this matter to a Division at this stage. Between now and Third Reading, I shall research how the Minister’s reading of the statutory powers fits with my understanding of them.
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- My Lords, I shall also look at that very closely before Third Reading.
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- Baroness NoakesConservative
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- My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 61 [Orders and regulations]:
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 38:
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- Lord Davies of OldhamLabour
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- moved Amendments Nos. 39 and 40:
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