Draft Official Statistics Order 2018

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 General Committees

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Paisley. Clean water, sound money, good statistics and fair chairmanship—you have certainly provided the last, Mr Paisley. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time; I earnestly hope it is not the last.

I thank the Minister for a clear interpretation and explanation of the order. We broadly welcome it and will not seek to divide the Committee. The order updates the list of applicable organisations in line with developments since the original legislation was passed and subsequent statutory instruments.

I have a couple of concerns that I ask the Minister to address. Will she confirm that there are no charities on the new list of orders and that these are all existing Government bodies of one sort or another? Since these statistics will now form the basis of official statistics, and therefore must be accurate, credible and reliable, will any additional support be given to the bodies concerned to ensure that they are able to meet the standards required, and that their core work of undertaking responsibilities will not be suffer as a result?

The current legislation is designed to ensure that we have an independent statistics authority that can challenge the use of statistics where necessary. If the body concerned is receiving Government grants or is in any way over-reliant on Government, will that reduce the capability to challenge the Government with hard-hitting statistics? Will the Minister provide assurance that the independence and credibility of these bodies are maintained? Dare I say it, the Government have some form in this area.

Finally, on a more general point, many of the public do not trust official statistics. The British Social Attitudes survey, conducted by NatCen Social Research, found that large majorities of people question the presentation of figures, ranging from unemployment to crime levels: 90% of people trusted the Office for National Statistics to produce accurate statistics, but just 26% said the Government would present those accurately.

We know that several hon. Members associated themselves with the bogus claims of the leave campaigns in the referendum, about £350 million being sent to the EU. The official statistics watchdog had to rebuke the Vote Leave campaign for those. As recently as March this year, Sir David Norgrove, the chair of the UKSA, rebuked the Prime Minister herself for the use of misleading figures on police funding.

In conclusion, we have a Government who, having changed the definition of poverty, are now using Government statistics to tell us that we are now a more equal society, despite the fact that food-bank usage has gone off the charts: 5,000 families in my own West Cheshire area alone are using food banks, while the Sunday Times “Rich List” tells us that the richest 1,000 people have increased their wealth by £466 billion since the crash. According to the TUC, the average worker will have lost £18,500 in income.

In that context, it is no surprise that folks do not trust what they are told by official figures. What will the Minister do to re-establish faith in the use of Government statistics?

[The Chair]

As I see no tsunami of people wanting to make a contribution, I call the Minister to respond.