Hansard

Why raise the same issue in November 2018, in September 2019 and again today? Why, given the no shortage of other problems in the world, persist with a focus on pre-release access? Why, with a majority of our members in favour and a minority not in favour, pursue a committee bill? Why this, of all the battles that we could have picked? Why, to be blunt, bang on about PRA?

The answer is simple and can be found in nature. I do not mean fauna and flora and David Attenborough documentaries, but the nature of policy, decision making and public debate, the language of which is increasingly reliant on numbers: the higher and national 5 results; the daily hospital admission figures; and the count of red and blue votes in Georgia and Pennsylvania—data that helps us understand events and determine their meaning.

In his book, “The Tiger That Isn’t”, Andrew Dilnot says:

“Quick and cool, numbers often seem to have conquered fact.”

He goes on to say:

“No science could be more necessary, and those who do it are often detectives of quiet ingenuity.”

We, as a committee, certainly share that respect for the work of statisticians. We also share the view that pre-release access makes their job harder, as the UK Statistics Authority said during our inquiry. Economic statistics are a public asset: a guide to follow the political and macroeconomic decisions that affect us all. We believe that data should be available on an equal and not a privileged basis. That is the premise of our bill.

We are not the only ones to reach that conclusion. The roll call—I trust that everyone has their pencils sharpened for this—includes: the Office for National Statistics; the Royal Statistical Society; the Bank of England; Professor Sir Charles Bean, the author of a 2016 independent review of economic data; Dame Jil Matheson, former United Kingdom national statistician; John Pullinger, retired UK national statistician; Professor Sir Ian Diamond, current UK national statistician; 114 senior academics and statisticians who signed a letter to The Times in May 2017; the Institute for Public Policy Research; the Adam Smith Institute; the House of Commons Public Administration Committee; Sir David Spiegelhalter, knighted in 2014 for his services to statistics; Michael Blastland, creator of Radio 4’s “More Or Less” programme; Will Moy, chief executive of Full Fact; Graeme Roy, director of the Fraser of Allander institute; and the UK Statistics Authority, which I have already mentioned.

We have not arrived at our position lightly, nor without exploring other options. It has taken three years and three cabinet secretaries to get us here. The tigerlemma of the situation—to refer back to Andrew Dilnot’s book—is, why does the Scottish Government not accept the view of the roll call of honour that I have just read out?

So, what would the bill do? There are three strands to it: it removes PRA for two specific categories of economic data; it introduces a phased approach to that removal and a review of its impact; and it reduces to one working day the PRA for those statistics where five is currently the norm.

Let me share the thinking behind each. The first would end PRA for two of the four categories of economic data that we identified in our original inquiry, namely retail sales and gross domestic product. Neither category is subject to PRA at a United Kingdom level, so ministers would not be losing anything retained by the UK Government. The second strand would stipulate that the removal of PRA be phased. Thus, one day would be cut to half a day after a year and be removed entirely after two years, with an independent review of the impact after three years, the findings of which would be laid before the Parliament. The third strand would cut PRA from five days to one in cases where the longer duration applies.

Of the five-day period, the Royal Statistical Society says:

“Scotland is very much an anomaly relative to almost the whole developed world.”—[Official Report, Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee, 26 September 2017; c 9.]

That is one table-topping plaudit that I suspect that we shall not be shouting about. However, in fairness, the Scottish Government wrote to us last May with a compromise. It said that ministers would be seeking one day where a five-day period now applies. That almost sounded promising but, when pressed, the then cabinet secretary said that he preferred a “pragmatic approach”, not “unnecessary amendments to legislation”.

The committee looked the gift horse in the mouth, and I am afraid that we found the dental work to be of a dubious quality, lacking the bite of effective legislation. To quote Democritus,

“Words are but the shadows of actions”,

and we require more than shadows.

However, some may ask what is so wrong with pre-release access. Should ministers not have the opportunity to be briefed before publication? Is there not merit in politicians of the governing party—whichever party that is—being fully informed? That is the cabinet secretary’s position, and that is where the Scottish Government is comfortable and, dare I suggest, complacent.

In 2017, when the ONS ended the practice, the headline in the Wall Street Journal was: “Controversial Early Peeks at Economic Stats to End”.

More recently, the Royal Statistical Society wrote to the First Minister and cabinet secretary, stating its support for the objectives of the bill by saying:

“In our view, it is not correct to claim that pre-release access in Scotland is being managed in line with the UKSA Code of Practice. While it is true that the Pre-Release Access Order gives the Scottish Government the responsibility to decide on this matter, the Code is also quite clear—in its section on accessibility—that statistics and data should be made available to everyone at the same time.”

It cited a

“compelling case for reform”

and recommended that the Scottish Government support the bill.

In a debate last year, the cabinet secretary herself agreed that data was a public asset. She said:

“We want to make data publicly available in an ethical and transparent way.”—[Official Report, 19 September 2019; c 94.]

Indeed. Such is the rationale of the bill, so agree to it.

David Spiegelhalter—whose name I dropped earlier—says:

“There is great damage done to the integrity and trustworthiness of statistics when they’re under the control of the spin doctors.”

He deplores what he calls “number theatre” and the co-option of numbers for political performance.

Let me be clear: the bill is about economic data. It is not about health or education statistics. It is about—to distil the debate in a mere five words—ministerial benefit versus statistical integrity. The data on the pandemic has revealed something important: it has shown us that numbers matter and that they matter too much to permit early peeks for some and not others. The bill is about openness and transparency; it is not about the conquering of facts. It is about fundamental principles. It is about equality of access. It is about trust. It is also about the nature and quality of public debate.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Pre-release Access to Official Statistics (Scotland) Bill.