Alan Johnson urged to 'come clean' over knife attack statistics

Health Secretary Alan Johnson was urged to "come clean" today on his role in the spin row over government knife statistics.

The Tories demanded an explanation from Mr Johnson after it emerged his private office was told about the figures the day before they were published.

A Commons committee revealed yesterday that No 10 published the figures despite warnings from statistics chiefs they were "potentially inaccurate".

Downing Street trumpeted the statistics, which claimed to show a drop in admissions to hospital from stab wounds, even though a civil servant had warned that their early publication might make it look like they were being used for "political ends".

The figures, which suggested admissions for knife wounds had fallen by 27 per cent in 10 areas between July and September last year, were published on the day Gordon Brown attended an event to promote the fight against knife crime. Today the focus shifted to Mr Johnson over a minister's claims in Parliament that the first he had known about the figures was on " the day of publication, 11 December".

However the email exchange released by the Commons Public Administration Committee shows that his special adviser - Mario Dunn -was asked to clear the release of the statistics the day before, 10 December. Mr Dunn then emailed Alan Johnson's private office soon after midday, asking: "Assume ok to clear this?"

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley told the Standard: "It is about time that Alan Johnson gave a full and accurate statement to Parliament about the part he and his adviser played in this rather shameful episode of manipulating statistics. It would seem that far from being nothing to do with the situation as he originally said, he and his advisers waved the whole thing through at the behest of Gordon Brown.

"About the only thing that people thought marked Alan Johnson out as a politician was that he was friendly and honest, so why won't he tell people the truth about what really happened?"

The Tories today claimed this was not the first time Mr Johnson had been accused of manipulating statistics for political gain.

In 2006, when he was at the Department for Education, one of his staff was accused of insisting that bad primary school results were "buried" on the same day as the GCSE results which traditionally dominate coverage.

Mr Lansley used a written Parliamentary question on 12 January to ask when Mr Johnson was informed by the NHS information centre that data "relating to patients attending hospital with knife wounds, provided to 10 Downing Street, had been or was due to have been published".

In reply, Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said: "My right honourable friend, the Secretary of State, was aware on the day of publication, 11 December."

Cabinet Office Minister Kevin Brennan yesterday said lessons would be learned from the affair and the individuals involved regretted the damage done.