§ Lord Lester of Herne Hillasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they accept the findings by the Statistics Commission contained in its annual report 2003–04 (cm 6250) of breaches by government departments of the code of practice; and, if not, which findings they do not accept and for what reasons. [HL3758]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord McIntosh of Haringey)The Government fully support the National Statistics Code of Practice, and in particular strongly reject any suggestion that Ministers have acted with any ill-intent against the protocol governing pre-release access to statistics.
The Government take seriously any breach of the code of practice, and HM Treasury has already instigated a number of changes to guard against future contraventions of the code, all of which were welcomed by the National Statistician.