§ Mr. SpearingTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps she has taken to rectify or supplement the census returns of 1991 to account for under-enumerations; and if she will consider further adjustment for areas where studies have suggested that further supplementation is required.
§ Mr. SackvilleAllowance for under-enumeration in the census has been made in the production of the Registrar Generals' mid-year population estimates. Details of the adjustments were published in Office of Population Censuses and Surveys Monitors PP1 93/1 and PP I 93/2, copies of which are available in the Library.
For other census outputs, the general practice adopted, as with previous censuses and as in other countries, has been to publish guidance on what is known about the level of undercoverage; users can then take this into account as is appropriate for their particular applications. The relevant information was first published more than two years ago; further details have been published since then but have been only marginal revisions of the overall amount. There was nothing exceptional about the overall coverage of the 1991 census—the published tables relate to 98 per cent. of the population, similar to 1981. This is up to the best international standards.