A Commons committee has warned that the two-year delay in reforming the UK’s official labour market statistics is a “major blow” that could lead the Bank of England and the government into making “misinformed” decisions about the economy.
Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the Treasury select committee, said that the delay would rob policymakers of reliable data about the jobs market making “some of the most consequential decisions taken by the Treasury and Bank of England challenging at best and misinformed at worst”.
Hillier was responding to a letter from Sir Ian Diamond, national statistician and head of the UK Statistics Authority, which said that the Office for National Statistics would not be able to publish accurate figures on key measures of employment, unemployment and