Statistics: Accuracy

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what procedures they follow to ensure the accuracy of any statistics used by ministers in parliamentary proceedings.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the independent UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for Statistics details the practices to which departments must commit when producing and releasing official statistics and of which Ministers must be mindful under the Ministerial Code. Upholding the code of practice in each department is the responsibility of that department’s head of profession for statistics, who is professionally accountable to the National Statistician. This will be reflected in the arrangements of individual departments for ensuring that parliamentary statements are accurate.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we know that the Government are worried when this Minister is put up to answer the Question. Is he aware that: on 10 January, the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, misled the House on benefit statistics; on 1 April, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, did the same on rough sleepers; and, on 4 April, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, gave false statistics on fuel poverty? For these breaches, should not these Minister be referred to paragraph 8.15 of the Ministerial Code, to which the Minister referred, for breaking the UK Statistics Authority’s code of practice? This House is fed up with being given false statistics by government Ministers to cover up the misery caused by their austerity.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

If the noble Lord looks at the website of the UK Statistics Authority, he will see when Sir David has intervened since August 2017. Counting the interventions when he has written directly to a parliamentarian, raising issues with their presentation of statistics, four are Conservatives and five are Labour. However—to avoid accusations of misuse of statistics—if one then looks at the indirectly critical letters, where Sir David has written to a third party, agreeing with them and copying the letter to the parliamentarian, my party is the worst offender.