Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the Office for National Statistics not requiring public bodies to collect data on ethnicity for (a) Jews and (b) Sikhs.

Public bodies usually collect ethnicity data in line with the ethnicity harmonised standard, which is developed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The current harmonised standard is based on the 2011 Census questions used across the UK; those questions were updated for the 2021 and 2022 Censuses. The current standard does not include specific “Sikh” and “Jewish” categories for a person’s ethnic group.

The ONS, which is independent of government, is reviewing the harmonised standard to ensure this remains appropriate and meets the needs of both data users and respondents. This will include a public consultation later this year.

We await the outcome of this review.