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Statistics body played politics in refinery row says minister
Nicholas Cecil4 Mar 2009
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was today urged to sack a minister who accused Britain's statistics body of "sinister" motives over immigration.
Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, claimed that the independent Office for National Statistics had been "playing politics" by releasing figures showing that one in nine UK residents was born overseas during a dispute over the use of foreign workers.
He also stressed that he had tried to stop the data from being published.
However, his outburst stunned MPs, especially after the statistics watchdog recently criticised Ms Smith and Downing Street for publishing potentially flawed figures on knife crime.
Senior Tory Michael Fallon, a former chairman of the Commons statistics panel, said: "It's disgraceful, undermining the ONS. You can't have ministers attacking its independence. He should withdraw the comments or be sacked."
Mr Woolas unleashed his extraordinary attack on the ONS after it published figures showing the number of foreign workers in Britain rose 175,000 last year to 2.4million. This compared with a fall of 234,000 in the number of British workers to 27million.
The figures were released during the dispute over the use of foreign workers at an oil refinery in Lincolnshire which left Gordon Brown defending his "British jobs for British workers" slogan.
"Most people believe that it is the Government who have released these figures," Mr Woolas said in a letter to left-wing think tank the Fabian Society.
"In fact, it was the ONS with no ministerial involvement and indeed despite my objections. So, Government gets the blame for whipping up anti-foreign sentiment when it is the independent ONS who are playing politics.
"The justification from the ONS - because it was 'topical' - is at best naive or at worst sinister."
Reader views (6)
This is what you get when the truth is out,the best place for woolas is in a circus
- Alex, brighton, 04/03/2009 17:50
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And why Jackie Smythe is not resigning?!??
- Georgie, Islington, London, 04/03/2009 14:36
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She won't sack him; when you're incompetent at your own job its useful to have idiots serving beneath you to deflect some of the flak.
- Masher, harrow, 04/03/2009 13:26
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Absolutely paranoid! Everyone is plotting against them you see. Even all those nasty, Right wing extremist numbers are at it now!
- Derrick, A Once Great Land, 04/03/2009 12:51
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How many sets of statistics have this government "doctored" before publishing them? They are corrupt to the core and must be voted out of office.
- R.F., Yorks, UK, 04/03/2009 12:47
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So, only statistics that NuLab have approved can be published, even if they are faulty? I notice that the figures themselves are not in dispute.
- Jim, London, 04/03/2009 11:43
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