§ Mr. Chris SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what, further to the Under-Secretary's reply to he hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury on 26 May, is his policy on the extent to which the presentation of census statistics will be described in terms of postcodes such as to make possible access to individual household data by computer comparison with other registers.
§ Mr. FreemanThe policy of successive Governments has been to take all practicable steps to protect the confidentiality of census information on individual people and households. In its White Paper on the 1991 Census of Population, Cm 430, published in July 1988, the Government confirmed that, in releasing the statistics from census, whether using postcodes or not, all possible steps will be taken to prevent the inadvertent disclosure of information about identifiable individuals. The means of presenting statistical summaries for small areas from the 1991 census are at present under discussion.