Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reasons the recording of ethnicity on death certificates has not been made mandatory.

Civil Registration is a devolved matter, and the General Register Office can only advise on death registration in England and Wales.

The information collected on a death registration is specified in law. As the death registration process itself is not the most effective method to establish ethnicity, there are no plans to change the law.

The Minister for Women and Equalities has stated that the government plans to include ethnicity information in the new electronic medical certificate of cause of death. The introduction of this new electronic certificate is being led by the Department of Health and Social Care.