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The Minister for Civil Society (Mr Rob Wilson)
I congratulate the hon. Member for York Central (Sir Hugh Bayley) on securing this important debate. I was sorry to hear the bombshell that he dropped at the end of his speech. I was not aware that he will be standing down at the May election. I pay tribute to him for his work highlighting the need for independent, accurate statistics, and for bringing the matter before the House.
Mark Twain wrote:
“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.”
I am not sure that my colleagues in the UK Statistics Authority would agree. Statistics make a crucial contribution to good government in a modern democracy, assisting in the formulation and evaluation of policies, and in the management of the services for which the Government are responsible, encouraging and informing debate, and allowing people to judge whether the Government are delivering on their promises. High-quality statistics are also a key resource for business, academia and the wider community.
With increasing emphasis on evidence-based policy making and effective performance management, statistics have greater importance than ever before, and ever increasing scrutiny is placed on them, not least by the hon. Gentleman. Statistics must therefore be, and be seen to be, of the highest professional quality and integrity. I take his point on having accurate figures across a range of different areas with a general election nearing. Many of those statistics are available, but he is right that they must be independent. The UK Statistics Authority’s role as independent guardian of the use of statistics is essential in ensuring public trust in what politicians say. The designation of a statistic as a national statistic is an exemplar of best practice. It allows officials and the public to be confident that the statistics released represent the facts and have been appropriately caveated, considered and presented.
The UK Statistics Authority has rightly written to point out where politicians’ use of public statistics has fallen below the standards that the public expect. The hon. Gentleman highlighted examples of that on the Government side—his point on the number of complaints to the UKSA shows that it is doing a good job in dealing with complaints—but some of the more egregious examples come from the Labour party. I am delighted that he has given me this good opportunity to point out once again that the shadow Business, Innovation and Skills Secretary, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), claimed last year that the number of young people claiming jobseeker’s allowance had risen by 263% in the north-east since the election when, in fact, as the UKSA noted, the published official statistics show that the number of young people claiming JSA in the north-east fell by 27% between May 2010 and May 2014. He also claimed that there had been a huge increase in the number of people on zero-hours contracts, but the UKSA pointed out that it was not in fact possible to back up that claim with any official figures.
Mr Wilson
I will give the hon. Gentleman an opportunity to respond to those points in a little while. The Leader of the Opposition has been rapped on the knuckles for his claim that four out of five new jobs were being created in London. The official statistics showed that the reverse was true. He also said that only crisis-hit Spain had higher numbers of young unemployed people than the UK, completely ignoring the relative size of European countries and the share of young unemployed people in the work force. The Labour party also tried to claim that violent crime was rising by using the police recorded crime statistics, completely ignoring the much more reliable crime survey, which showed that violent crime was falling. In fact, the police recorded crime statistics have had their national statistics designation removed due to accumulating evidence that the underlying data on crimes recorded by the police might not be reliable.
Sir Hugh Bayley
It is kind of the Minister to give way and appropriate that he went through his examples of criticisms by the UK Statistics Authority of Opposition spokespeople. I acknowledge that Government and Opposition Members have quoted statistics erroneously, either wilfully or through misunderstanding them. However, that is not my point. My point is that the figures are produced by the Government and in Departments. It is important that there is independent scrutiny of the Government, whichever party is in government.
Mr Wilson
If I may, I will turn to some of the questions the hon. Gentleman asked. His first question was whether the UK Statistics Authority should have the statutory responsibility to designate numerical information produced by Departments as official—that was really what he was asking. The Government are aware that the UK Statistics Authority is in favour of that course of action, and we are considering it. His second question was on having a code of practice for numerical information that is not presently designated as official statistics. The UK Statistics Authority is against that, as it believes it will dilute the code of practice on official statistics by creating a lesser class of statistics. It would prefer a much broader definition of official statistics, which the Government are also considering.
The hon. Gentleman asked about manifesto commitments, which is obviously a matter under discussion in manifesto planning more widely. That will be done in the normal way in private conversations, but there are many pressures, and many lobby groups wish to inject such things into party manifestos. He raised the point of the creation of another Select Committee to look at and be responsible for statistics. I am not sure we need another Select Committee for that. There may be a case for giving extra powers and responsibilities to Select Committees, but I do not think we need a new one. That deals with most if not all his questions.
In addition to our regular release of statistics, the Government are committed to being the most open Government ever. Through gov.uk dashboards, we are reporting Government performance on areas as diverse as blood donation, driving licence bookings and patent renewals. The public can see how we are doing as near as possible to real time, without spin or manipulation.
Statistics are part of the story of a Government, but they are not the whole story. We can challenge each other’s ideas and check each other’s numbers, but it is right that the UK Statistics Authority is there to call us to account. It cannot, however, become the referee in a game of political football, particularly in a general election period. Its job is far too important for that. We have obligations as politicians to be sure of our facts and to ensure that we are confident of the sources of our information. That is important, not only in presenting our achievements to the electorate, but in developing the right policy solutions for our country.