Census

Lord Maclennan of Rogart Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

There is no interrelationship between the electoral register and the census at the moment. I do not know whether the National Statistician has considered that possibility, but both act under totally different powers vested in them by Parliament. The confidentiality of one list, as opposed to the other, must be respected.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, since the budget for the forthcoming census is approximately twice that for the census conducted in 2001, and since 50 per cent of the present costs are to be met by outsourcing, will the Government not assume that handing over to other agencies is necessarily going to be the way to make substantial public savings? Will the Minister also recognise that it is important for Parliament and the public to know what the considerations are that will be borne in mind when the recommendations are made in 2014? Can he ask that that be a fully transparent process?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I assure the House that it will be a fully transparent process. It is accuracy that lies at the heart of any census programme, and connected to that is the response rate. For the last census, the response rate was 94 per cent, but in some parts of the country it was lower than that. For example, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, it was as low as 68 per cent, and adjustments had to be made to ensure that the figures accurately reflected the situation. Much of the effort this time is going into ensuring that we have a much more substantial response rate and that in no part of the country is it less than 80 per cent. The hope is that with a more dynamic model that might be improved.