HL Deb 19 November 2003 vol 654 cc313-4WA
Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Following the premature publication of the September retail sales figures:

(a) whether they will name the individuals within the Treasury, with their job titles, who had pre- release access to those figures, indicating in each case whether this access was for briefing purposes, for management information or for quality assurance purposes; and

(b) whether they have now reduced the number of individuals who have pre-release access to the monthly retail sales figures, and, if so, to what number; and [HL5391]

Why releases of market sensitive statistical information require early access by Treasury officials and Ministers, either (a) up to 40.5 hours in advance or (b) at all; and [HL5392]

What are the monthly releases; of statistical information which they consider to be market sensitive, showing the numbers of individuals within the Treasury who received early access to each release in the month of September 2003. [HL5393]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord McIntosh of Haringey)

In line with long-standing practice under this and previous administrations, Ministers with policy responsibility for the relevant subject matter, and a small number of their officials, are granted limited early access to statistical releases to enable them to respond completely when questions arise at the time of the release of the data. The list of Treasury Ministers and officials who have authorised pre-release access to National Statistics First Releases is available on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) website.

In addition the Macroeconomic Statistics Service Level Agreement, drawn up between ONS and HM Treasury in 1998, lists a further small number of individuals at HM Treasury who receive copies of HM Treasury's internal briefing on these statistical releases before the publication of the data. Since 1998, this list has been updated to reflect changes to personnel and staff structures with the overall number of individuals reduced from eight to seven.

As noted in the Treasury's statement of 5 November, the Treasury views this incident extremely seriously and is rigorously examining all its procedures to ensure that any repetition is avoided.