Decennial Census 1911 (Hansard, 27 November 2001)

The information requested falls with the responsibility of the national statistician, who has been asked to reply.

Letter to Lord Skidelsky from the executive director of the Office for National Statistics, dated 27 November 2001.

The Registrar General for England and Wales has been asked to reply to your recent question asking whether the current policy which prevents public inspection of the 1911 decennial census because censuses for England and Wales are closed for 100 years, will be reviewed. I am replying in his absence. (HL1398)

There are no plans to review the current policy covering public inspection of the 1911 Census records. A closure period of 100 years for census records is specified in legislation in Instrument No 12 dated 1966 made under the Public Records Act 1958. The Lord Chancellor in conjunction with the Minister of Health, who at that time was responsible for the Census, prescribed the closure period.

Under the Public Records Act, there is provision for a record held by the Public Record Office to be inspected if special authority is given by the department responsible for the record. In 1993 it was announced in Parliament that the Registrar General would be willing to consider particular applications for information to be extracted from the 1911 returns if it would enable the applicant to establish a legal entitlement such as an inheritance.

Such authority would be given only where the information is not available from any other source and is clearly requisite for establishing the entitlement in question. The Registrar General would wish to be fully satisfied from documentary evidence as to the identity of the applicant. Where the desired information from 25WA the Census form relates to a living person other than the applicant, that person's consent would be required before the information would be released.

At the time of the 1911 Census, assurance was given that the contents of the Schedule would be treated as strictly confidential. To amend retrospectively the rule would jeopardise public confidence in assurances about recent and future censuses. It may put at risk public trust in other guarantees given about confidentiality.

I appreciate that information from census returns would be of value to those people researching their family history, but maintaining the public's confidence in the protection of census information is paramount.