Jack Dromey used to organise the intimidatory mass pickets at Grunwicks in the 1970s where he was trying to force the management to accept a closed shop.
He is now the Shadow Minister for Housing and is still having some success in persuading the BBC to present his version of events as the reality. After this spurious story about housing statistics he wrote to Housing Minister Grants Shapps complaining that an announcement was not brought forward concerning a drop in construction of social homes. Imagine the Dromey/BBC complaints if the Government did order the dates for the release of statistics to be changed?
Anyway, Shapps has sent a robust response:
Thank you for your letter of 24 November.
I appreciate that you have not been a Minister, so may not be fully aware of how official statistics are regulated under the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. This Act was introduced because of the abuse of statistics under the last Administration.
The Homes and Community Agency’s statistics were published in the normal way, according to the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. As is the usual practice, a handful of people within my department were given ‘pre-release’ access to them, only 24 hours before the fixed publication date of Tuesday 22 November.
The timing of the publication by the Homes and Communities Agency of routine statistics had no bearing on the timing of the Government’s Housing Strategy announcement on Monday 21 November.
It would have been a breach of the Act for any Minister or departmental representative to have made public reference to these statistics on the Monday. Her Majesty’s Opposition cannot have it both ways: calling for statistics to be released in the proper way, and then implying that statistics should have been released to Parliament in a manner which would have breached the law. We have followed the Act: you imply that you wish to break it.
Moreover, because my department could not have been aware of the substantive content of the statistics until (no more than) 24 hours in advance of the publication date, there is no way in which its contents could have had a bearing on the timing of the Housing Strategy, which had been determined long before. Indeed, the formal notice of a Written Ministerial Statement was made to the House on the Friday before.
There were no discussions of the kind you suggest and no consideration by my department in any way of the two issues being related or connected. Your suggestion that the Government was “news managing the publication of official statistics” is completely and utterly without foundation. I consider your comments and associated press release a cheap political stunt – which in itself undermines public confidence in official statistics for petty partisan gain.
On the issues relating to government policy on housing, I would note:
The Housing Strategy sets out bold, ambitious plans to get the housing market moving again including plans for not only the £400 million Get Britain Building investment fund but also the establishment of a new £500 million Growing Places Fund, support for a new industry-led scheme to support access to mortgages, extra funding to tackle concentrations of empty homes, funding to support Custom Build Homes, freeing up public sector land with capacity to deliver up to 100,000 new homes and a consultation on a proposal to allow reconsideration of those planning obligations agreed prior to April 2010 where development is stalled. These measures will result in more community benefits and affordable housing – as opposed to there being no regeneration and no development.
This constitutes a far-reaching programme of action to deal with the housing challenges this country faces and address the legacy of boom and bust we inherited from the last Administration.
In relation to holding a debate on housing, I look forward to discussing housing policy with you at Monday’s DCLG Oral Questions. As you are not in government, your party is free to hold Opposition Day Debates on topics of your choosing.
Given you have raised these issues in Business Questions and press released your letter, I am placing a copy of this reply in the Library of the House and sending a copy to the National Statistician, the Leader of the House and the Speaker.
Yours sincerely,
Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP
Minister for Housing and Local Government