§ Lord Marlesfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
What estimate they have made of the number of Roma people who are United Kingdom citizens and are currently resident in this country. [HL1213]
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from the National Statistician, Mr Len Cook, to Lord Marlesford, dated 13 February 2004.
The National Statistician and Registrar General for England and Wales has been asked to reply to your recent question asking what is the estimated number of Roma people who are United Kingdom citizens and are currently resident in this country. I am replying in his absence (HL1213).
Information in relation to England and Wales has been compiled from the 2001 Census. The 2001 Census question on ethnic group did not include a tick box for `Roma' but provided the opportunity for people to describe their ethnic group in any way they wished if they considered that none of the tick box categories was appropriate to them. There were 1,710 persons usually resident in England and Wales who wrote in descriptions of themselves as 'Gypsy' or 'Romany' in response to the question on ethnic group. There were a further 509 persons who described themselves as `Traveller'. These figures have been taken from Commissioned Table M221. It is not possible to identify how many of these were United Kingdom citizens, since the Census did not ask a question on citizenship.
Commissioned tables can be obtained from Census Customer Services at the Office for National Statistics (email: census.customerservices@ons.gov.uk).
Similar information has not been compiled in relation to Scotland and Northern Ireland, where separate Censuses are conducted.