Census (Hansard, 7 November 2002)

§ Ruth Kelly

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Menzies Campbell, dated 7 November 2002: As National Statistician and Registrar General for England and Wales I have been asked to reply to your recent question concerning the groups recognised in the 2001 Census with numbers of less than 700,000 as recorded in the 1991 Census; which groups other than Sikhs requested separate monitoring for the 2001 Census but were denied their request; and which groups recognised in law as separate ethnic groups requested separate monitoring for the Census but were denied their request. Those ethnic group categories identified in the 2001 Census question on ethnic group by a separate tick box responses, but for which less than 700,000 responses had been recorded in the 1991 Census question, were:

Mixed White and Black/Caribbean
Mixed White and Black African
Mixed White and Asian
Pakistani
Bangladeshi
Black Caribbean
Black African
Chinese

The matter of determining which ethnic group categories should be specifically identified in the 2001 Census resulted from a programme of wide consultation with census users on their requirements for information and with representatives of the various ethnic communities, and of extensive small-and large-scale testing of potential questions, including a major Census Test in 1997 and the Census Rehearsal in 1999. The question that was eventually proposed in the Government's White Paper on the 2001 Census in March 1999 and which was subsequently included in the 2001 Census in England and Wales, following approval by Parliament, had been revised in consultation with users, both to meet their requirements for additional information, particularly about the Irish population in Great Britain and people of mixed origin, and to be as acceptable as possible to respondents. Special attention had been given to using words or terms that encompassed the widest range of attributes including birthplace, race and cultural characteristics. The new response categories were such as to provide optimum comparability with the 1991 Census question while, at the same time, attempting to improve response to the question particularly among those communities who, tests had shown, preferred to describe themselves as "Black British" or "Asian British". Prior to the 2001 Census, a number of representations were made to ONS to include in the ethnic group question, additional tick boxes response categories for the purpose of recognising particular groups. Other than those from the Sikh community, these included representations concerning the following groups that could not, in the event, be included in the question, either because there was not a sufficiently wide enough user support or because the case was made too late:

Welsh
English
Cornish
Kashmiri
Arab
Greek
Turkish
Kurdish
Cypriot
Vietnamese
Gypsies/Travellers

However no such group—whether or not subject to any lawful recognition as an ethnic group—was denied the opportunity of being recognised as such in the 2001 Census, since the form of the ethnic group question provided for write-in responses within each of the main groups in order to allow persons to describe their ethnicity in whichever way they chose. I announced at the time of the Census that such responses would be identified in coding and that counts would be made available in the results if there were a user requirement for the information. Additional and specific information on Sikhs was, however, collected in the 2001 Census through the new question on religion.