Census

Lord Moser Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise the huge interest taken in the information contained in the census? Genealogy is a fast growing hobby which has the added benefit of encouraging the more mature of our citizens to engage with computers. The USA has released census information after 72 years without any apparent deleterious effect. In the light of this, will the Minister examine the current government policy of not releasing census information for 100 years?

[Lord Moser]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

The House is very enthusiastic on this subject.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for his question. I understand that the restriction is traditional. The new project to look beyond 2011 will include all these aspects. It is particularly important for many people that they have an opportunity to trace their ancestors. We have to understand that we live now in an IT age; indeed, where is the written letter and where are our written documents? It is going to be much more difficult for historians of the future to find the evidence of our lives today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Moser]

Perhaps I should declare an interest in that I used to be responsible for the census, I do not know how many years ago. There is no question but that the traditional census is of enormous importance for the country to understand our population, migration and much else. I am delighted that next year’s census is going ahead, as planned. That is good news. As to the future, however, there are now serious alternatives which have been followed and adopted successfully in a number of other countries. Most Scandinavian countries and Germany now use alternatives, which is what is on the cards.

[Noble Lords]

Question!

[Lord Moser]

Will the Minister assure us that following those alternatives, which are very complicated, will have full support and collaboration from the Government?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moser, for his question and contribution. He speaks from a great deal of experience in this subject. The most important thing is to emphasise that proposals will come to Parliament before any developments are taken forward. One of the difficulties with the current census is that it is usually way out of date by the time it is actually published. We live in a very mobile society, as we all know, and to try to get a dynamic model would produce considerable advantages in the allocation of resources and the ability of government properly to address the issues of the day.