Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of the population was Muslim at the time of the last census, and what is their projection for the next 10 years.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

Please see the letter attached from the National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority.

The Lord Pearson of Rannoch

House of Lords

London

SW1A 0PW

23 December 2024

Dear Lord Pearson,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking what proportion of the population was Muslim at the time of the last census, and what is their projection for the next 10 years (HL3696).

Please see Table 1 which includes the data on the proportion of the population that identified as Muslim in the 2021 Census. Please note that this is a voluntary question which had a 94% response rate to the question.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) does not currently produce projections on religion or any other characteristic that might indicate the size of the Muslim population in the future.

Table 1: 2021 Census dataset for England and Wales, including total usual residents, Muslims, and not answered[1].

Source: Office for National Statistics

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

[1]In order to protect against disclosure of personal information, records have been swapped between different geographic areas and counts perturbed by small amounts. Small counts at the lowest geographies will be most affected.