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Census (England and Wales) Order 2009

My Lords, this draft Order in Council gives effect to the proposals of the United Kingdom Statistics Authority for the ONS—the Office for National Statistics—to conduct a census throughout England and Wales in 2011. These proposals were set out in the Government’s White Paper, Helping to Shape Tomorrow, published in December 2008. The census is the most important source of population statistics, and is the only source of statistics for both small areas and minority population groups. For over 200 years it has provided the underlying information which successive Governments have used to devise policies, take decisions and deliver services. Billions of pounds of public funding and resources are allocated to local and health authorities each year using census-based information. Since the 2001 census, a new independent body that reports directly to Parliament, the UK Statistics Authority, has been created. The ONS, the executive office of the authority, will lead on the census in 2011. I can therefore present the census order today confident that its content has been produced not by Government but by the ONS, following extensive consultation with a wide range of stakeholders and with rigorous question testing. The independence of the census is essential if we are to build public trust in official statistics. I will now take you through the detail briefly. Under the Census Act 1920, an Order in Council is necessary to prescribe the date of the census, the people to be counted, the people responsible for making a census return, and the information to be given in the census returns. The date of the census will be 27 March 2011. Everyone will be recorded at the place where they are usually resident. Household members who are temporarily absent on census night also need to be counted. Some additional information will be collected on household visitors, which is essential if the ONS is to ensure that visitors are properly counted at their usual residence. The person responsible for making a census return is to be the householder or joint householder, but any individual aged 16 or over may make a separate individual return. The information to be given in the census returns is covered by Article 6 of the order and is set out in Schedules 2 and 3. Regulations, to be laid before the House in spring 2010, will set out the detailed content of the census and will contain copies of the various questionnaires. On the information to be given in the returns, the ONS has carried out extensive consultations with central and local government, including members of all-party parliamentary groups, with community groups, with businesses, with academia, with the third sector and, most importantly, with the general public. The ONS has also carried out in-depth question testing between 2003 and 2009, building on the valuable experiences and the lessons learnt from previous censuses. This is to ensure that the proposed questions in the 2011 census are justified, both in terms of the need for the information itself and of their acceptability to the public. Under the terms of the Census Act 1920, some items—those in italics in the draft order—may only be included in the census if they are approved by an affirmative resolution. It is these that we are debating today. Only a few are new to the census, and I will now deal with these specifically. First, people born outside the UK will be asked about their date of entry into the country and, for those who arrived in the past year, the length of their intended stay. There is an increasing need for more accurate and reliable statistics on migration in general, particularly on short-term migration. The census will therefore provide information on shorter-term migrants and temporary foreign workers, and help to give a better understanding of their needs and their impact on local labour markets and demand for local services. Secondly, people will be asked to state the country of any passport that they hold. Government departments and the European Union require statistical data on the citizenship of the population. The question asks about passports rather than about citizenship. Asking directly about a person’s citizenship confuses respondents, who may mistake the question for one of national identity. People give much more consistent answers to a question about passports, with the result being easier to use to produce the necessary citizenship-related information. Thirdly, people will be asked to register another address where they actually spend time. Such information will be particularly useful to local authorities which need to know the number of people who stay within their area and use local services during the week but who have a usual residence elsewhere. Fourthly, people will record their national identity in addition to their ethnicity. Noble Lords will be aware of the amendment that was voted down in the other place to add a tick-box for "Cornish" in the national identity question. Fifthly, people will be asked about their main language, allowing central and local government better to target language support and resources to those sections of society unable properly to access public services due to language barriers. People whose main language is not English will be asked to state their proficiency in speaking English, with an additional, similar question about proficiency in Welsh in Wales. This will give a greater insight into the need for language training and community work to combat any possible discrimination and social disadvantage suffered by people whose language skills could be improved. All other items requiring affirmative resolution cover topics that were included in the 2001 census, but I shall refer specifically to two where there have been some slight changes to the information to be collected. The question asking people to assess their general health during the past 12 months has now been expanded to a five-point scale ranging from "very good" to "very bad". This information is for the planning of health policy and the provision of services, particularly for the elderly. The question on qualifications has a new tick-box to indicate any foreign qualifications held. Other questions deserve mention either because the proposed wording has been revised since the last census or because particular interest has been shown by noble Lords. Following the Civil Partnership Act 2004, the traditional census question on marital status has been expanded to include response categories for civil partnership status. Noble Lords may be aware of lobbying campaigns by Kashmiri, Sikh and Cornish groups, for example, on the ethnicity question. It has not been possible to include a tick-box for every ethnic group category requested. Each request was compared against a detailed set of prioritisation measures before the final recommendation was made. This identified strongest need for additional response categories for "Gypsy and Irish Traveller" and "Arab", which have therefore been included for the 2011 census. People can record their ethnicity in whichever way they choose by writing this in the write-in spaces provided. All such responses will be counted. In the case of Sikhs, there is the additional option of ticking the specific "Sikh" box in the religion question. The Government are satisfied that the census is compliant with national legislation on race relations and any international conventions on the protection of national minorities. I shall refer briefly and specifically to the proposed question on religion. A number of noble Lords have made representations to the House during previous debates and directly to the ONS on the proposed question. In particular, concerns have been expressed that the question on religion is leading and overstates the extent of religion within the country. The proposed question measures an affiliation with a religion and not belief or practice. It provides information which can be used together with responses to the ethnicity question to monitor equality and discrimination by identifying minority ethnic subgroups that may otherwise be missed, particularly those originating from the Indian subcontinent, in terms of their religion. As a result of concerns expressed, the ONS tested alternative questions on religion. The testing concluded that no single question on religion can be worded in such a way as to capture suitably information on religious belief or practice and to justify losing comparability with the 2001 census. There is a strong user requirement for comparability with the data from the 2001 census. The proposed question on religion therefore remains unchanged, and remains the only question in the census for which a response is voluntary. There is a new question asking for the number of rooms designed for use as bedrooms. This will measure overcrowding and assist in the planning of housing investment and the addressing of social and economic need. There is also a new question asking about the type of fuel used for central heating, to provide data on basic housing standards and fuel poverty and deprivation. Despite some strong user demand for an income question, testing by ONS revealed that including a question on one’s income leads to a significant drop in response rates. There were also concerns over the quality and accuracy of the income data collected as part of the test. There was a strong requirement for information on sexual identity in order to monitor equality. After investigation, the ONS recommends that a compulsory census is not a suitable means to collect information on sexual identity, again because of the quality of the resulting data, and including the question is likely to reduce the overall response to the census. Although the ONS does not recommend that a question on income or sexual identity be asked on the census, it recognises the user demand for this information and is taking steps to provide some data through other sources. I shall say a few words about security and confidentiality. The ONS has an excellent track record when it comes to security. Additional measures are being instigated and all internal and external threats that could affect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of census information are being carefully managed. The information will be protected by strong physical and electronic data security arrangements. Census information will be used only for statistical purposes, and ONS will not release any personal-level information. Noble Lords will know that it is a criminal offence to unlawfully pass on personal census data. Census information is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act. The Government’s policy is that data from questionnaires should be kept secure and closed to the public for the next 100 years, with the paper questionnaires being destroyed in a controlled and secure manner. The resulting electronic data will be registered under the Data Protection Act 1998, and the arrangements for handling the information during processing are to be the subject of an independent security review. I turn to the cost of the census. The 2011 census in England and Wales is expected to cost around £480 million over the 10-year period. In its report on the 2001 census, the Treasury Select Committee recommended that any future census should be justified in cost-benefit terms. The ONS business plan to the Treasury for the 2011 census clearly demonstrated the unique value of the census and that the benefits of having the information far outweigh the costs of its collection. The identified cost benefits exceed £700 million, compared to a cost of £480 million. More than £1 trillion is allocated to local authorities and to NHS primary care trusts in the 10 years between each census, on the basis of census information. The census cost equates to just 87p a year per person, which we believe demonstrates excellent value for money. The per capita costs in the UK are less than those for many other European countries that carry out similar censuses, and considerably less than the costs in America. In summary, this census will meet crucial requirements for the statistical information that Governments and others cannot do without. The burden on respondents will be kept to a minimum and the questions have been fully tested and found acceptable and compatible with both UK and EU legislation. I am confident that we have the right census package for helping to shape tomorrow. I therefore commend the draft order to the Grand Committee. I beg to move.