Clause 11
Statistics and Registration Service Bill
11:15 am
Theresa Villiers (Shadow Chief Secretary To the Treasury, Treasury; Chipping Barnet, Conservative)
The Opposition believe that it would significantly strengthen the proposed reforms if the board were given the power to decide the rules on ministerial pre-release access to statistical information prior to publication. That is why we tabled amendment No. 92, which the Committee just had the opportunity to vote on, to put pre-release into the code of practice. That is also why we support amendment No. 21 and why we will be voting against clause 11 when we get the opportunity to do so.
If the Government genuinely wish to devolve power over statistics, as they claim, and make a genuine step towards “modern economic governance”, they should not exclude pre-release rules from the devolution proposed. In theory, under the logic of the scheme expected in the Bill, one would expect pre-release rules, at least in relation to national statistics, to be included in the code of practice and thus to be determined by the new reformed structures that the Bill will set up.
The Government’s decision to put pre-release into legislation, by making a specific exception to the principle that the board decides how national statistics are dealt with, significantly undermines the credibility of the reforms they propose. It seems to us that there is nothing inherent in pre-release rules that makes them qualitatively different from other rules governing the treatment of statistics. Not only should the board have the power to decide the rules, but I hope that it would choose to exercise that power to restrict the current scope of pre-release access. Like many others who expressed a view during the consultation process, we believe that the time has come to tighten the rules on pre-release.
Pre-release should be restricted by limiting the range of statistics to which it applies, reducing the number of people who are granted access and by shortening of the period of access.