Hansard

Before I get to the important substance of the debate, I commend the committee for introducing a committee bill, which is an underused mechanism in the Parliament. I believe that I am correct in saying that the Parliament has passed only seven committee bills since it came into being in 1999, and all but two of those bills were about internal regulation, matters of standards and other such issues, so the committee is to be commended for introducing a bill of substance that will make a difference. I call on committees in the next parliamentary session to seriously consider using the power and capacity that they have. I am recommending that my committee’s legacy paper makes suggestions about future committee bills that could be introduced.

This is a bill that matters and an issue that matters because, as Gordon Lindhurst set out, statistics matter. We live in a world of post-truth politics where we constantly see the undermining of information sources and the questioning of facts. Quite simply, we need to build back trust, because truth matters, experts matter and statistics matter. What destroys trust is the sense that things are being only partially presented, being spun or being presented in a manner that protects particular interests and diminishes others. The concept of framing information is well understood and one that everyone in the chamber understands. The more opportunity we give for things to be framed from a particular vantage point, the more people’s sense of mistrust in facts and statistics will increase.

We have heard from the Scottish Government that it needs time to understand things. I put it gently to the minister that I am sure that he does not need more than 24 hours to understand a set of numbers. I know that he is pretty good with numbers, and I know that, given a statistical release, I do not need more than a single sleep to digest it.

The minister is right that we need to ensure that people understand what numbers are saying, but I politely say to him that the Government’s perspective is not the only valid perspective—it is not even the only important one. It is important that we have equal access so that we have a balanced debate. For as long as people feel that the debate is imbalanced, we run the risk of undermining trust, which we need to combat.

I politely suggest that the Government needs to learn that lesson urgently. In this week of all weeks, the sooner it releases information, the better. Delays in discharging its duty simply undermine public trust.

I also politely suggest to the Government that, right now, it is sitting on information—critically, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report—that the Parliament has asked for it to release and which it must release. It is not right that the Government can sit on that report for months while it gives suggestions and asks for alterations and updates.

Quite simply, in the 21st century, time matters. There are no secrets in the 21st century; all that there is is openness. The more people delay or seek to delay, the more they build in mistrust. The time periods were introduced at a time of typing pools and paper memos. A century ago, it took time—it might well have been days—to disseminate information, but it now takes literally milliseconds for information to be duplicated and disseminated.

Quite simply, pre-release access is not good practice; best practice demands early release. Best practice is supported by the Royal Statistical Society, the ONS, the UK Statistics Authority and others. I will put it like this: if the Bank of England, whose data sets are among the most sensitive that are produced across these islands, does not enjoy pre-release access, why should the Scottish Government have it?