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Government Statistics

My Lords, I resist the temptation to comment on the statistics that led to the splitting of Cheshire County Council by the Government, which has been a blot on the landscape of an otherwise very successful Government. It is a great honour to be a mere statistic between the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, who introduced this important debate, and the noble Lord, Lord Moser, whose social survey method was my bible for so many years. Mentioning the Bible leads me to remind the House of my long debate, some years ago, on the use and funding of Britain’s historic places of worship. It was, in part, a response to the steep and precipitous decline in church attendance, now thought to be around 6 per cent, according to Christian Research’s English church census. I am now appalled to learn that the ONS will keep the flawed 2001 question—"What is your religion?"—in the forthcoming 2011 census. This is a leading question. The census should ask first whether the respondent has a religion. It not only overrepresents the religious in our country, but underrepresents the non-religious. It also fails because it confuses and conflates the concepts of belief and ethnicity, as exemplified by our own Sikh and Jewish communities. It is, indeed, arguably discriminatory under the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2006. The British Humanist Association, of which I am a member, sought information from the Office for National Statistics under the Freedom of Information Act on the result of its trialling of two alternative questions, including, ""Do you regard yourself as belonging to a religion?"" The answers have been both tardy in coming and incomplete. I understand that face-to-face encounters between the ONS and the BHA indicate that results on the question of non-religion are more in line with many other surveys, which show a substantial rise in the number of the non-religious. Could the Minister comment on that? Incidentally, the alternative question and its trial were not even reported in the White Paper, Helping to Shape Tomorrow. Can my noble friend comment on this serious omission, which should have been included in the White Paper? I therefore conclude that the Government should, first, ensure that there is complete disclosure of the internal data of the Office for National Statistics and the debate on the questions about this important issue that should be used in the 2011 census. Indeed, a further question might be added that separates data revealing ethnicity, to make it discrete from that gathered on religion. If that is not included, I suggest that the question on religion should be eliminated, especially in this flawed form. It was only introduced in 2001. If we do not have proper data to inform the debate and formulation of public policy, there will be inaccuracies and the direction of funds, resources and policies will be unhelpful to the nation as a whole. I include the example that I started with. We have a duty—and I speak as an atheist—to ensure that the wonderful churches that are part of our heritage are perhaps found new uses, or certainly sufficient funding to be retained as part of the stock of our culture. The debate is flawed and unsatisfactory. We must have good data and statistics to inform a proper public policy debate.