Response from Sir Robert Chote to Stephen Kinnock MP – asylum backlogs

Dear Mr Kinnock,

Thank you for your letter of 19 December. You raised concerns about inconsistent claims made by government Ministers on the size of the backlog of undecided asylum applications. I apologise for the delay in responding, as we were attempting to confirm with Ministers the basis of the figures cited.

You gave three examples of statements made in December 2022:

  • On 13 December the Prime Minister said that the current backlog was half the size that it was when Labour was in office.[1]
  • Sarah Dines, Minister for Safeguarding, said on 14 December that over half a million legacy cases had been left by the last Labour government.[2]
  • On 19 December Robert Jenrick, the Minister for Immigration, said that 450,000 legacy cases had been left by the last Labour government.[3]

In 2006, the Home Office embarked on a clearance exercise that set out to deal with the then backlog of asylum applications. In May 2010, at the time of the General Election, this exercise was still underway. This work is discussed in detail in the April – July 2011 report of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee[4] which you highlighted in your letter. The Committee took evidence from the Chief Executive of the UK Border Agency that the clearance exercise was completed by March 2011, by which time 500,500 cases had been reviewed[5]. Although the backlog included some current applications, 56% were duplications, errors or applications moved to the ‘controlled archive’. Those moved to this controlled archive often involved applicants who were untraceable, deceased or had become an EU citizen through another channel.

In March 2013, a subsequent report by the Home Affairs Committee[6] criticised the quality of data provided by the UK Border Agency to the Committee. The Committee referred to a 2012 report by the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration[7], which found that during the backlog clearance exercise, regular checks were not being carried out on applications before they were moved to the controlled archive. This means that some of the archived applications should have remained live, further reducing the quality of the data.

Given the data quality issues at that time, it would not be reasonable to suggest that this management information from the UK Border Agency accurately represented half a million genuine undecided asylum applications then in the backlog.

The most appropriate source of statistics on asylum applications awaiting a decision are produced by the Home Office and reported quarterly[8]. These tell us that the number of applications awaiting a decision was 18,954 in June 2010[9]. This is the earliest published data and coincides closely with the 2010 General Election. The same spreadsheet also provides the latest number of undecided asylum applications which was 166,261 at the end of December 2022. This means that during the period from June 2010 to December 2022 there has been a net increase in undecided asylum applications of 147,307, not a halving.

You cited figures from the Institute for Government, which are drawn from this same source, and from the House of Commons Library, which was using statistics on ‘work in progress’. In addition to applications awaiting a decision, the ‘work in progress’ measure also includes cases awaiting an appeal outcome and awaiting deportation.

The statements by Ministers that you asked about do not reflect the position shown by the Home Office’s statistics. I have engaged with their offices to bring this to their attention and share the UK Statistics Authority’s expectations for the use of official statistics and data in public debate.

I am copying this letter to the Minister for Immigration.

 

Yours sincerely,

Sir Robert Chote

 

FOOTNOTES

[1] Illegal Immigration, Hansard, 13 December 2022

[2] Asylum Seeker Employment and the Cost of Living, Hansard, 14 December 2022

[3] Asylum Backlog, Hansard, 19 December 2022

[4] The work of the UK Border Agency (April–July 2011) (PDF), Home Affairs Committee, 1 November 2011

[5] Correspondence from UK Border Agency to the Chair of the Committee, Home Affairs Committee, 12 September 2011

[6] The work of the UK Border Agency (July-September 2012) (PDF), Home Affairs Committee, 25 March 2013

[7] ICIBI report of legacy asylum and migration cases, November 2012, Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, 22 November 2012

[8] Asylum and resettlement datasetsAsy_Do3: Asylum applications awaiting a decision, Home Office, last updated 23 February 2023

[9] The figure for 2010 is not straightforward to access due the formatting of this spreadsheet. It can be viewed by clearing or adjusting the filter in cell B3 on sheet ‘Asy_d03’.

Related links:

Letter from Stephen Kinnock MP to Ed Humpherson – asylum backlogs

Response from Sir Robert Chote to Daisy Cooper MP – Excess Deaths

Dear Ms Cooper,

Thank you for your letter of 13 January. You had concerns about comments that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care made about official deaths statistics in a radio interview on 11 January.

My office has spoken to the Secretary of State’s office, which clarified that it was not his intention to reject the official statistics, rather he was referring to the changing context since 1951.

There are indeed a range of methods for measuring expected and ‘excess’ deaths and for taking account of trends both long-term and short-term (including the pandemic), and there has been recent interest in the comparative strengths of these. In response, the Office for Statistics Regulation has carried out a review of the methods used by various statistical producers to report on excess deaths and the Office for National Statistics is inviting views to inform a review of its own methods.

Yours sincerely,

Sir Robert Chote

 

Related links

Letter from Daisy Cooper MP to Sir Robert Chote – Excess Deaths

Letter from Daisy Cooper MP to Sir Robert Chote – Excess Deaths

Dear Sir Robert,

I am writing to raise concerns about the dismissal of official excess death statistics by the Secretary of State for Health and Social care, the Rt Hon Steve Barclay MP.

The statistics, produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), show that the UK saw 50,000 excess deaths in 2022, making it the worst year since 1951, excluding the Covid pandemic.

In an interview by Nick Ferrari of LBC News on the 11th January 2023, the Health Secretary said he did not accept those figures, stating: “Well, what I am saying is we don’t accept those figures” This appears to be in direct conflict with the findings of the ONS, which show: “The number of deaths from all causes was above the five-year average in the week ending 30 December 2022 (Week 52).”

It is irresponsible for a member of the Government, let alone the Secretary of State for Health, to reject the findings of official health statistics. It undermines the credibility of the ONS and casts dispersions on the validity and impartiality of the statistics produced by the ONS.

Misuse, or in this case rejection of statistics by politicians, can lead to pressure for policies that are not supported by the data, or an excuse for inaction in the face of crises.

I therefore ask that you investigate the Secretary for Health and Social Care’s comments and offer your guidance on whether or not it is appropriate for government ministers to refuse to accept statistics on registered deaths published by the Office for National Statistics.

I look forward to your response on this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Daisy Cooper MP

Related links

Response from Sir Robert Chote to Daisy Cooper MP – Excess Deaths

Response from Sir Robert Chote to Dame Angela Eagle MP – Public sector pay

Dear Dame Angela,

Thank you for contacting us with your concerns about two figures that have been used by Government Ministers to describe the potential cost to households of public sector pay increases, namely that “if everyone in the public sector had a pay rise in line with inflation, it would cost an extra £28 billion, an extra £1,000 per household” (cited, for example, by Health Secretary Steve Barclay MP on 7 December 2022).

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury explained in reply to a Parliamentary Question a week later, on 15 December, how these figures had been calculated. The £28 billion was calculated by taking the 2021-22 public sector pay bill, increasing it by around 5 per cent to reflect pay awards this year and then adding a further 11.1 per cent uplift for 2023-24, reflecting the increase in consumer prices in the year to October 2022. The calculation was also adjusted for the impact of pay drift and workforce growth. The aggregate gross cost calculated on this basis was then divided by the number of households in the country to give the figure of £1,000 per household

As a number of commentators – including from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Full Fact – have pointed out, these calculations include a number of judgements and assumptions that others might wish to debate, including the choice of inflation adjustment, whether to include the impact of increased tax and national insurance payments by public sector workers, and whether it is appropriate to quote an average sum across all households when the impact would be felt differentially depending on household income and other factors. (In this context, you point out that the pay increases could be funded partly from taxes on business, but it is important to remember that all taxes are ultimately paid by individuals and households).

Given the judgements and assumptions involved, it would clearly have been desirable – and in line with the Office for Statistics Regulation’s principles of intelligent transparency – for the Government to have explained clearly and accessibly how such a high-profile number had been calculated as soon as it was put into the public domain, allowing MPs and commentators to debate them in an informed way from the outset. My office has engaged with the Treasury to make this point.

Yours sincerely,

Sir Robert Chote

 

Related links

Dame Angela Eagle MP to Sir Robert Chote – Public sector pay

Letter from Stephen Kinnock MP to Ed Humpherson – asylum backlogs

Dear Ed

I am writing to you, in my capacity as Shadow Minister for Immigration, regarding recent claims made by government Ministers, including the Prime Minister, about the size of the backlog of unresolved asylum claims over time. As you will be aware, this is a matter of great concern to members of the public and it is therefore especially important that government statements do not use statistics in a misleading way.

I understand that an important part of your role relates to ensuring compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. I am concerned that recent statements by members of the government fall short of the code’s stipulations that statistics ‘should be based on the most appropriate data’ and that they ‘should be presented clearly, explained meaningfully and provide authoritative insights that serve the public good.’ I have set out the reasons for these concerns below.

1. Conflicting claims by government Ministers:

As you are no doubt aware already, various Ministers have recently made statements comparing the size of the current backlog of asylum claims to the number of cases which were unresolved at the time the last Labour government left office in 2010.

For instance, on Tuesday 13 December the Prime Minister said in response to questions from MPs that: ‘Difficult though the backlog is, it is half the size that it was when Labour was in office’. [i]

Given that the asylum backlog stood at 121,307 as of September 2022, [ii] the Prime Minister appeared to be arguing that the number of unresolved cases at the time of the 2010 general election was around 240,000. That claim was directly contradicted by subsequent claims by Home Office Ministers, which gave much larger figures (between 450,000 and 500,000) for what they described as the asylum backlog the government ‘inherited’ in 2010.

Last week, the day after the Prime Minister’s statement in the Commons, I spoke in a debate in Westminster Hall on delays in the asylum system. During this debate the Minister for Safeguarding, Sarah Dines MP, said that ‘the Home Affairs Committee reported – I think in 2011 – that over half a million legacy cases had been left by the Labour government’ [iii]. The Minister for Immigration, Robert Jenrick MP, made a similar claim earlier today, telling MPs that: ‘The backlog of cases was 450,000 when the last Labour government handed over to us’. [iv]

These conflicting claims do not inspire confidence in Ministers’ grasp of the facts and figures most relevant to this debate. This may be an issue you’ll want to look into further, with a view to ensuring that MPs and members of the public receive consistent, reliable data from the members of the government.

2. Relevance of specific figures used by Ministers:

At the same time, what seems to me the more important question is whether the use of figures in the range of 450,000-500,000 are helpful or even relevant to a full and accurate understanding of the relative size of the asylum backlog in 2010 and 2022. Having investigated a range of publicly-available information on this, it seems clear to me that claims by Ministers based on those figures provide a wholly misleading view of the reality.

Following Ms. Dines’s remarks in last week’s debate, I looked back at the relevant reports published by the Home Affairs Committee in 2011. Both reports do refer to the roughly 500,000 ‘legacy’ asylum cases identified by then-Home Secretary John Reid in 2006. But the Minister’s use of that figure failed to acknowledge that a number of issues, highlighted in the very reports Ms. Dines was citing, appear to indicate that those ‘legacy’ cases do not provide a relevant comparator to the current backlog as it is measured by independent experts and by the government itself.

One such issue relates to the fact that, as the committee explained in 2011, the ‘legacy’ caseload encompassed a number of ‘electronic and paper-based records’ that were ‘riddled with duplication and errors,’ including those of ‘individuals who have since died or left the country’. [v]

Even if the ‘legacy’ caseload in 2010 were accepted as a relevant comparator to today’s backlog, Ministers’ use of the 450,000-500,000 figures would still be inaccurate. This is demonstrated by the statement made by the then-Minister for Immigration, Damian Green MP, in July 2010, that around 277,000 of the 450,000 ‘legacy’ cases identified in 2006 had already been resolved by May 2010. [vi]

3. Failure of Ministers to use more relevant figures on the relative size of asylum backlogs:

Meanwhile, as explained below, Ministers’ recent statements have repeatedly ignored data which seems to me both more accurate and more relevant to the issue at hand.

For instance, the well-respected and impartial House of Commons Library uses the number of asylum cases classified as ‘work in progress’ as a measure of unresolved asylum claims. In its analysis of the most recent official statistics, the library notes both that this measure was introduced by the Conservative-led government in 2011 and that the number of outstanding cases as of June 2022 (166,100) was the highest since the Home Office began publishing these figures more than 10 years ago. [vii]

Research by the Institute for Government, published just last month, provides further evidence that the asylum backlog comprised fewer than 20,000 at the time the Labour government left office in June 2010, as the following table illustrates: [viii]

A chart shows the increase in the backlog of asylum claims since June 2010, broken down by length of delay. The chart also shows the number of applications per year, which has increased at a much slower rate

Final comments:

It seems clear to me that Ministers’ statements are providing an inaccurate and wholly misleading picture of reality, and that (whether intentionally or not) the effect of these statements is to minimise the seriousness of the asylum backlog as it currently stands.

I would therefore be grateful if you could investigate these matters and send me a response, outlining your views as to whether the number of ‘legacy’ cases resolved between 2006 and 2011 provides an accurate or meaningful picture of the number of unresolved asylum claims in 2010, in comparison to the current number, or whether the statistics used by the House of Commons Library, the Institute for Government and others provide a more accurate comparison which should be used by Ministers instead.

Thank you in advance for your assistance, and I look forward to hearing back from you. I would be very grateful for a response by 9 January 2023, if possible.

 

Kind regards,

Stephen Kinnock
Member of Parliament for Aberavon
Shadow Minister for Immigration

 

FOOTNOTES

i. HC Deb, 13 December 2022, column 903.
ii. Georgina Sturge, Asylum Statistics, House of Commons Library, 5 December 2022, p19.
iii. HC Deb, 14 December 2022, column 343WH.
iv. HC Deb, 19 December 2022, (uncorrected Hansard, no column numbers).
v. Home Affairs Committee, The work of the UK Border Agency (April-July 2011), HC 1497-I, 1 November 2011, paragraphs 12-26. See also Home Affairs Committee, The work of the UK Border Agency (November 2010-March 2011), HC 929, 24 May 2011.
vi. HC Deb, 6 September 2010, c64W.
vii. Georgina Sturge, Asylum Statistics, House of Commons Library, 5 December 2022, pp14-15.
viii. Sachin Savur, Tom Sasse and Rhys Cline, ‘Asylum backlog’, Institute for Government, 8 November 2022.

 

Related links

Response from Sir Robert Chote to Stephen Kinnock MP – asylum backlogs

Dame Angela Eagle MP to Sir Robert Chote – Public sector pay

Dear Sir Robert,

Misleading figures on public sector pay increases

I am writing to raise concerns over two figures used by Government Ministers regarding the total cost, and cost per household, of public sector pay increases which I believe to be inaccurate and misleading.

A number of Government Ministers, including the Prime Minister, have claimed that public sector pay increases would cost households an “extra £1000 per year”, calculating a total cost of £28 Billion.

The Prime Minister stated on 9 December 2022 that households would have to “pay an extra £1,000 a year to meet the pay demands of the union bosses“.

I believe this figure is inaccurate and am alarmed by the Government’s use of deliberately inflated figures regarding the cost of such pay increases.

The Government appears to have reached their £28 Billion figure by increasing the £233bn 2021-2022 public sector pay bill by around 5% to reflect pay deals for 2022-23 (reaching a figure of £245bn). They have then taken 11% of this total, reflecting most recent CPI inflation figures (October 2022), coming to a total of £27 Billion onto which an additional £1 Bill ion has been added from “assumptions on pay drift and workforce growth” to reach £28 Billion.

The ‘£1000 per Household’ claim has been reached by dividing the above £28 Billion by the 28
million households in the UK.

It has been widely commented that these calculations fail to acknowledge a number of issues:

  • As the IFS have highlighted, “spending plans were set last autumn on the assumption of 2-3% pay awards” which are “already built in
  • The Government’s figure does not incorporate this – surely, their calculations ought only to address increases that are additional to sums they have previously budgeted for.
  • Any pay increase would be in part returned to the Treasury in the form of higher tax payments, reducing the cost of an increase significantly.
  • The £1000 per household claim assumes that pay increases would be funded solely through taxes paid by ‘ordinary’ households – disregarding the use of other avenues or taxation such as from businesses. It also assumes that taxes such as income tax are levied equally across households, and therefore increases would have a uniform effect which we know not to be the case.

In my capacity as member of the Treasury Select Committee, I raised concerns regarding these figures with HM Treasury officials on 12 December 2022 during their evidence session. Whilst Cat Little, Second Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury highlighted the above breakdown of these sums, James Bowler CB, Permanent Secretary, HM Treasury advised he was not aware of the figures’ origins, but instead referred to the “established procedure” of the UK Statistics Authority in regulating claims by Government Ministers and politicians more generally.

I am concerned that Government Ministers are using misleading statistics publicly regarding the cost of pay rises, and believe it is critical that figures used are accurate.

I would welcome your view on the Government’s use of both the £28 Billion figure, and the £1000 per household per year figure. I would be grateful for your verification of these figures, and your advice on the Government, and its Minsters’, continued use of them.

I look forward to your response.
With kind regards,

Dame Angela Eagle MP

 

Related links

Response from Sir Robert Chote to Dame Angela Eagle MP – Public sector pay

Response from Sir Robert Chote to Drew Hendry MP – Trade deal statistics

Dear Mr Hendry,

Thank you for contacting us with your concerns about a trade infographic shared by the Conservative Party on Twitter, which stated that the Government has “secured new free trade deals with over 70 countries since 2016. That’s over £800 billion worth of new global trade”.

As regards the figure of £800 billion, we presume that this has been calculated from figures for UK trade by country published by the Office for National Statistics. These show that the value of total trade with the EU was £559 billion in 2021 (exports of £267 billion plus imports of £292 billion) and that the value of total trade with the 71 non-EU countries with which the UK has agreed trade deals since 2016, including those where existing deals with the EU have been rolled over, was £245 billion, giving a total of £804 billion. These non-EU countries include 67 listed by the Department for International Trade plus Australia, Brunei, Malaysia and New Zealand (with whom the Government has signed deals that are not yet in force).

Under the principles of intelligent transparency, we would expect the infographic to include a source for the figure so that the public can verify the numbers, understand the definitions used and put the data into context. More specifically in this case, it is misleading to describe the £800 billion figure as a measure of “new global trade” resulting from the recent deals. That would imply that there had been no trade with these countries before the recent deals and that there would be none now without them.

We have spoken to the Conservative Party and asked that any future communications include a link or reference to the source of statistics. We have also requested that the Party be more transparent about the context and assumptions that have been made to construct such statements and infographics.

Yours sincerely,

Sir Robert Chote

 

Related links

Drew Hendry MP to Sir Robert Chote – Trade deal statistics

Response from Sir Robert Chote to Andrew Gwynne MP – DHSC chart on nurses’ pay

Dear Mr Gwynne,

Thank you for your letter of 18 November regarding the chart reproduced below that was tweeted by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) on 10 November to show the recent evolution of the pay of nurses.

You raised two issues:

  • First, you argued that it was “disingenuous to claim that nurses have been awarded a pay rise”, by focusing on particular points in nurses’ pay bands and comparing cash figures between 2020-21 and 2022-23 rather than real (i.e. inflation-adjusted) figures over a longer period, for example since 2010. It is perfectly reasonable to debate whether cash or real-terms figures are a more appropriate basis for comparison, and what time period and points in the pay bands should be used, but the chart is not in itself misleading in this regard. That said, the department could have provided a link to the source data [1] [2] [3] as recommended in the Government Analysis Function’s guidance on charts and as it has done in other cases. This would allow readers to understand the precise definitions used, verify the figures and put them in a longer-term context. The Office for Statistics Regulation – the regulatory arm of the UK Statistics Authority – has raised this issue with the department, which I gather intends to publish a blog explaining the basis for the figures used.
  • Second, you argued that, even given these choices, the chart was misleading in how it was drawn – partly because the y-axis does not start at zero and partly because the slopes of the lines do not appear to reflect the underlying figures. I agree that this is a poor and misleading representation of the underlying data that risks damaging public confidence in the presentation of official statistics by the department. Beginning the y-axis at around £20,000 exaggerates the proportionate increase in pay over the period and for this type of reason, breaks in axes of this sort should usually be avoided or at least shown transparently in the way they are labelled and formatted. In addition, as shown below, the freehand way in which the lines appear to have been drawn suggests a bigger relative increase in pay for newly qualified nurses and a bigger pay premium for “a few years’ experience” than the underlying data justify.

A copy of the DHSC chart with an overlay from Sir Robert Chote

 

The shortcomings of this presentation underline how important it is that political and communications teams within departments consult and listen carefully to their Heads of Profession for Statistics before publishing high-profile numbers or data visualisations of this sort. Failure to do so can undermine public confidence in the outputs of the department and in the presentation of official statistics more broadly.

In addition to sharing our conclusions with the department, I am copying this letter to the Chief Executive of the Government Communication Service.

Yours sincerely,


Sir Robert Chote
Chair

 

Related links

Andrew Gwynne to Sir Robert Chote – DHSC chart on nurses’ pay

Drew Hendry MP to Sir Robert Chote – Trade deal statistics

To whom this may concern at the Complaints Department of the UK Statistics Authority,

I am writing to you in relation to a graphic published by The Conservative & Unionist Party Headquarters and then tweeted on the 2nd November 2022 by the current Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, Michael Gove MP, that read:

We’ve secured new free trade deals with over 70 countries since 2016. That’s over £800 billion worth of new global trade.

The same graphic was also shared by the Conservative Party, and retweeted by over a dozen Conservative MPs.

I write in the interests of supporting the proper and accurate use of statistics and data and the ever-present need for integrity in Government. For the sake of clarity, it is important that the context of these statements should be set out.

Claim 1: We’ve secured new free trade deals with over 70 countries since 2016.

I am of the firm opinion that the use of the word “new” in this circumstance is wholly misleading for the following reasons:

  • The majority of these deals were rolled over from existing EU agreements and are therefore continuity deals, rather than new Free Trade Agreements.
  • The vast majority of these deals are exact “copy and paste” replicas of the of deals the UK previously had when it was an EU member, rather than creating new trading arrangements, taking the exception of the deal the UK struck with Japan which has some new digital clauses inserted which some campaigners deem to be problematic.
  • The total number of rollover deals the UK Government has managed to secure, is smaller than the number of countries the EU has agreements with.
  • To take some examples, the UK does not currently have a trading agreement of any kind with with Algeria, but it did as a member of the EU. The UK does not currently have a trading agreement of any kind with Bosnia & Herzegovina, but it did as a member of the EU. The UK does not currently have a trading agreement with Montenegro, but it did as a member of the EU.
  • That all means we are part of fewer trade agreements now, than we were as a full member of the EU, which goes against the tone that the graphic tries to strike.

I am of the firm opinion that the usage of “free trade deals” in this circumstance is wholly misleading for the following reasons:

  • It has been reported by the BBC on 20 September 2022, that the UK Government has “secured rollover deals with 69 of the original countries” we traded with as a full EU member.
  • Rollover deals are not necessarily Free Trade Agreements.
  • The EU is keen to stress that it has 41 trade agreements in place with 72 countries, but they are not all Free Trade Deals – some are free trade agreements (FTAs), some are economic partnership agreements (EPAs) and some are association agreements (AAs).
  • To suggest that all agreements the UK has struck with all 70 countries are Free Trade Deals is misleading and also goes against the published information provided by the Department for International Trade.
  • It is for that reason that we seek clarity on that the provenance of that figure.
  • Indeed, the Department for International Trade’s website only lists 67 countries the UK Government has trading agreements in principle or ratified deals with, so the provenance of the figure of 69 [BBC article] and indeed 70 [infographic in question] is not clear.
  • Of the 69 deals listed on the Department for International Trade’s website, 41 of those are full ratified deals and 26 of those are indicative of provisional applications submitted for free trading terms.

Claim 2: That’s over £800 billion worth of new global trade.

I am again of the firm opinion that the use of the word “new” in this circumstance is wholly misleading for the following reasons:

  • The claim does not specify any context or accountancy time frame.
  • I believe that the figure refers to the total value of goods and services trade between the UK and countries it has agreed trade deals with in 2021 [£818 billion, Office for National Statistics, 27 October 2022] – not what the impacts of the trade deal terms themselves add to the UK economy.
  • Not all trade is a result of countries having trade deals. The UK does not have a free trade deal with China and China is one of the UK’s largest trading partners. To say that the Free Trade Deals themselves are responsible for this total sum is misleading, and that is before we speak to the use of the word “new”.
  • To use the term “new” is misleading for the aforementioned reasons in Section 1 of this letter.
  • The UK Government has said itself that it was its policy to develop “new bilateral agreements that replicate, as far as possible, the effects of the UK’s existing trade agreements with existing partners, through its previous membership of the EU”.

I hope you will agree that public trust requires a complete statement that affords due regard to economic context. We urge you to raise the importance of these issues with the Conservative Party.

Yours sincerely,

Drew Hendry MP

 

Related links

Response from Sir Robert Chote to Drew Hendry MP – Trade deal statistics

Jamie Stone MP to Sir David Norgrove – Channel 4 Privatisation

Dear Sir David,

I am writing to raise concerns over the misrepresentation of official statistics from the results of the
Consultation on a change of ownership of Channel 4 Television Corporation by the Secretary of State
for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS), Nadine Dorries MP.

The Government’s response to the consultation on a potential change of ownership of Channel 4
Television Corporation was published on 28th April 2022. Question 1 of the consultation asked: “Do
you agree that there are challenges in the current TV broadcasting market that present barriers to a
sustainable Channel 4 in public ownership?”

The report states that: “Of the 55,737 responses received in total from individuals to this question,
96% (53,426) said no, whilst 2% (995) agreed”.

Just days later, during an appearance by Nadine Dorries MP at the Commons Digital, Culture, Media
and Sport committee on Thursday 19th May 2022 this figure was misquoted.

When questioned by John Nicolson MP who asked: “You conducted a privatisation consultation that
generated a very impressive 56,293 responses according to the White Paper. What percentage of
those responses supported privatisation?”

The Secretary of State incorrectly replied that “I think the figure was about 96%”

The response was a gross misrepresentation of the outcome of the Government’s own consultation.
And as you have previously stated when politicians use figures that do not reflect reality, it can lead
to pressure for policies that are not supported by the data – and that would not be desirable.

The future of Channel 4 is an emotive issue and it is crucial for public trust and understanding that
statistics are used accurately and not misrepresented. I therefore ask that you investigate the
statements made by Nadine Dorries MP in relation to Channel 4 and offer your guidance on whether
it is misleading.

Yours sincerely,
Jamie Stone MP
Liberal Democrat Digital, Culture, Media & Sport Spokesperson


Related links:

Sian Jones response to Jamie Stone MP – Channel 4 Privatisation