Lord McFall of Alcluith
Main Page: Lord McFall of Alcluith (Lord Speaker - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord McFall of Alcluith's debates with the Cabinet Office
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord McFall of Alcluith
My Lords, in order to overcome the notion of dodgy statistics, the Minister will be aware that Parliament set up an independent body in the UK Statistics Authority which was first chaired by Sir Michael Scholar. As a result of that, he and others have resisted the massaging of statistics by politicians. Is not the UK Statistics Authority a bulwark to prevent the massaging of statistics by politicians? Therefore, we must commend the work of the UK Statistics Authority and resist any breach of it by politicians or others.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, one of the best things done in this area by the previous Government was to establish the UK Statistics Authority as an independent body. The decision was criticised on all sides. Some noble Lords will remember the article in the Financial Times by Chris Giles which said that it was appalling not to have abolished the RPI and move all the way towards the CPI.