Same-sex Couples (Hansard, 24 March 2004)

§ 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. Edward Leigh, dated 24 March 2004: As National Statistician and Registrar General for England and Wales I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking how many same-sex couple households there are in England and Wales according to the 2001 Census; and how many same-sex couple households there are in Great Britain according to the Labour Force Survey. (163070). The 2001 Census defines a same-sex couple as two people of the same sex, both resident in the same household, who report themselves as partners on the Census form. Figures published in table UV93 in the 2001 Census National Report for England and Wales Part 2 on the number of people with same-sex partners indicate that there were 39,261 co-residential same-sex couples in England and Wales identified by the 2001 Census. However, same-sex couples can only be identified if they choose to declare themselves as partners on the Census form. Thus the count of co-residential same-sex couples would be an underestimate of the true number. It is not known to what extent there was an undercount because, for example, same-sex couples may have ticked some other box in the relationship field such as 'Unrelated'. Furthermore, a household may contain more than one couple and there is no exact count of the number of same-sex households from the 2001 Census. The Labour Force Survey (LFS) gives information about same-sex couple households for each three-month period. It collects information on residents in private households. Questions are designed to establish whether each resident is cohabiting or not, and, if so, with which other household member. However, same-sex partnership can only be distinguished if the respondent volunteers the fact; it is not asked. In the LFS, a same-sex couple is defined as two respondents who are living together as a couple in the household and who are the same sex. In the three-month period ending November 2003, 50,887 same-sex couple households in Great Britain were identified on this basis. The LFS is a sample survey covering over 57,000 households in the United Kingdom in each three-month period. As with any statistical sample survey, estimates from the Labour Force Survey are subject to sampling error. It is not possible to derive an estimate of the number of co-residential same-sex couples in Scotland by taking the difference of the two estimates provided in this answer, since data were provided at different times and in different contexts, and each figure is subject to estimation error. There will be a more comprehensive analysis of how to interpret information on same sex couples later this year.