Official Statistics Order 2010

Lord Newby Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Grand Committee

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I think I have the dubious distinction of being the only person in the Room who has taken part in previous debates on the equivalent order. I do not want to repeat the debates that we have had in previous years, but I draw to the Minister’s attention a point that was originally drawn to the attention of the House by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral. The body that produces the most statistics and is the most controversial, but sadly does not appear on this list, is the Bank of England. We have had happy debates in previous years about whether it would be a good idea to include the Bank on the list. I think that in the past the Bank has succeeded in persuading the Treasury that it should not be included—surprise, surprise—but the list would be strengthened, and indeed the way in which the Bank’s own figures are viewed would be strengthened, if the ONS could have a look at them. I do not expect the Minister to have anything of comfort to say because I know how formidable the Bank can be in guaranteeing and protecting its independence, but it is a logical body to be covered by the order. I remain sorry that it is not.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I thank both noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. I shall deal first with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby. He is quite right that I am not in a position to give any immediate comfort, except to say that he will of course recognise, as does everyone, that the independence of the Bank of England has been a major development in politics. Indeed, one has to give credit to the previous Government for putting the Bank of England in a position of independent standing. Although the authority and the Bank are in regular contact with each other, they have agreed not to include the Bank in the 2010 order, and that has been done with the consent of the Cabinet Office and the Treasury. The Bank has its own code of practice for statistics, which works well for its specific and important role. It passes a lot of data on to the Office for National Statistics, and any resulting statistics, including parts of the national accounts and their publication, Monetary and Financial Statistics, are national statistics and therefore fully compliant with the authority’s code.

The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, the Leader of the Opposition, made a strong point about the overlap between this order and the Public Bodies Bill, and those who are responsible for my briefing for this short debate will vouch for the fact that my first reaction on receiving the brief was, “Oh, public bodies again”. There is, of course, an overlap, but I hope to persuade the noble Baroness that there is a consistency in that the Official Statistics Order deals with the current position and is designed to implement this year’s additional bodies and reinforce their standing.

As the noble Baroness rightly pointed out, the Public Bodies Bill is legislation in progress. It is not for me, standing at the Dispatch Box and dealing with this order, to presume the outcome of the legislative process in Parliament. The Government clearly have to allow for the passage of the Bill before they can address its statistical consequences.

I can reassure the noble Baroness that placing bodies in Schedule 7 does not mean that they are threatened with immediate abolition or that the statistics that they produce are not an important part of government. It is therefore very important to recognise that, although a number of bodies in this order are also mentioned in the Public Bodies Bill, the collation of statistics is a matter for government and will continue to be so. Any process that produces statutory instruments under the Public Bodies Bill will address the issue of the statistics that a body may well provide to government and to the public.