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Census (England and Wales) Order 2009

I have to tell the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, that he is okay. The electoral registration officer will accept that he is Scottish. The trouble is that they will not accept that my wife is English, and she does not like it. There are a lot of other people around of the same opinion. As for being European, I consider myself to be part of the continent of Europe—we are, after all, on the same continental shelf, which I am very happy about. However, I do not want be governed by an organisation called the European Union, which is completely undemocratic—I shall not go into its problems—and I am quite happy to be Welsh, British and European all at the same time. We should move towards an integrated community, not a split one. I am glad that the question on income has been dropped. It is clear that there was a lot of discussion. I think that the Government perhaps favoured our being forced to answer questions on it, which would have been very difficult. A lot of income comes from the black economy. You cannot really expect people to put, "This is my income from work but then, on the other hand, I do some other jobs on the side and this is how much I earn". I am not sure, therefore, that one would get an accurate view of people’s incomes. People have all sorts of income, some of which they forget or do not want to put on a tax return. They will not fill in a census which, although they are told it is confidential, may lead to the taxman getting hold of some income that they have not declared to him. I am glad also that the question on sexual proclivities has been dropped, because there are so many of them. It would require a very long list of questions to get a true answer. However, I am concerned that these intrusive questions should not be put about by other means. While they will not be included in the census, it is clear that there is curiosity among the Government about people’s incomes and how they behave themselves sexually. I would like the Minister to give me the relevant assurances. My final point echoes one raised by the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan. Our population since the end of World War II has risen by more than 15 million, much of it taking place in the past five years. Consideration should be given to taking censuses at shorter intervals. It might not be as dear as one would think, because a lot of surveys about various things are being done up and down the country in the interim, and they cost money, too. While we might on the one hand incur additional costs because the census would be conducted at shorter intervals, we could save money on the other because there would be less need for individual surveys on various items. In the hope of one or two assurances from the Minister, I shall sit down.