PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
STAT XPLORE (15 July 2015)

That this House condemns the policy of the Department for Work and Pensions of responding to Parliamentary Questions merely by linking to the website of its hard-to-use stat xplore tool, refusing to publish figures or place them in Parliamentary Answers; notes with concern that this practice makes important statistics and figures harder for the public to see, making government less transparent and comprehensible to people; expresses concern about the future readability and integrity of the historical record of the UK Parliament resulting from this practice; further notes that this practice of not calculating statistics is explicitly against the Guide to Parliamentary Work issued by the Office of the Leader of the House, which in paragraphs 7.37 and 7.38 states that Parliamentary Answers should give only urls to a precise datum requested, and not to a larger dataset, that Departments should supply hon. Members and the Library with specific information, and that Ministers in that Department, and others, have refused such specific requests to put information in the Library; expresses concern that, in not calculating statistics, that Department may not accurately track the effect of its policies; notes that stat xplore is hard to use, and little support is available for interested members of the public; and calls for the Department for Work and Pensions to aid in governmental openness by publishing requested statistics in full.

Sponsored by:
Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party)