Bernard Jenkin
Main Page: Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex)Department Debates - View all Bernard Jenkin's debates with the Cabinet Office
(10 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberMay I tell my hon. Friend how much I agreed with my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General when he said in opposition that we should end the practice of pre-release—the release of statistics to Ministers and officials hours or even days before they are released to the public, so that they can be spun? Would it not increase trust in statistics if the Government adopted the views of the UK Statistics Authority and the Public Administration Committee and ended this practice, as they have in many other jurisdictions?
I know that my hon. Friend feels strongly about this, as does the Committee he chairs. He will know that we inherited a regime that had, rightly, been tightened up, with arrangements embedded in legislation. He will also know that we reviewed the arrangements when we came into power and took the view that the right balance had been struck. The arguments are well rehearsed and although I know that he does not like the message, we are not going to change the arrangements and I do not think that that message is going to change.