Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 04 March 2021
Thank you, Presiding Officer. I hope that my time is not yet up, in the chamber or elsewhere.
World statistics day was last November, and the tagline was
“Connecting the world with data we can trust”.
Although the bill is purely about economic statistics, it is probably fair to say that, over the past 12 months, we have all come to appreciate the importance of data and the excellent work of our statisticians.
The minister’s comment about Tories and statistics is a slightly odd one, given that every member of the cross-party committee, apart from the SNP members, supported the bill. At the same time, even the SNP members, who were a minority on the report, took the following view:
“The Committee considers there should be a presumption against pre-release access and invites the Scottish Government to put forward arguments why pre-release access should be continued for specific statistics.”
Therefore, it was not just the majority and the cross-party consensus but the SNP minority who expressed that view about the current situation.
I think, as other members have said, that we really need to address in Parliament the issues that surround openness, fairness and transparency in these things. I do not think that members of the public who have observed some of what has taken place in Parliament over the past five years would refer to it as a balanced, well-managed and functioning place in every respect. The bill is a small step towards ensuring that the systems that are in place are conducive to having a Scottish Parliament and a Scottish Government that are held to account so that they are in fact balanced, well managed and functioning.
With those words, I close my contribution to the debate.