Cabinet Office

Monday 14th October 2019 Ministerial Corrections

Census (Return Particulars and Removal of Penalties) Bill [Lords]

The following is an extract from the Committee stage of the Census (Return Particulars and Removal of Penalties) Bill [Lords] on 7 October 2019.

[Mike Gapes]

From what the Minister says, I am unclear on whether it will be possible for Sikhs to tick a specific box on the 2021 census. Can the Minister please clarify?

[Kevin Foster]

I am happy to clarify that there will be a tick box for Sikhs under the religion section but not under ethnicity. There have been 55 requests for particular tick boxes on the census that the ONS is not recommending, and having a Sikh tick box under ethnicity is one of those that the ONS is not recommending.

[Official Report, 7 October 2019, Vol. 664, c. 1593.]

Letter of correction from the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster):

An error has been identified in my contribution to the debate.

The correction information should have been:

[Kevin Foster]

I am happy to clarify that there will be a tick box for Sikhs under the religion section but not under ethnicity. There have been 55 requests for new ethnic group tick boxes on the census. Of these the ONS is recommending only one new ethnic group tick box, for Roma. Having a Sikh tick box under ethnicity is one of those that the ONS is not recommending.