Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment she has made of the impact of inflation on low-income households.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises inflation can place particular pressure on low-income households. Analysis from the Office for National Statistics shows that lower-income households spend a larger share of their income on essentials such as food, energy and housing.
The Government is committed to bearing down on inflationary pressures and cutting the cost of living.
Alongside this, the Government is going further to support those who need it most by removing the two-child limit in Universal Credit, increasing the National Living Wage, and committing to the pensions Triple Lock for the duration of this Parliament. The Government has also expanded the £150 Warm Home Discount to a total of 6 million lower-income households, and is expanding free school meals to children in households receiving Universal Credit in England.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to question 85264 answered on 5 November 2025, whether her Department has had recent discussions with the Office for National Statistics on the linking of Census data to hate crime data.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Home Office officials have started conversations with the Office for National Statistics to investigate the technical feasibility of linking anonymised person-level data Census data to police recorded hate crime to improve its data quality.
I will write to you once these discussions have concluded.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what estimate his Department has made of the number of domestic properties which use (a) oil and (b) liquefied petroleum gas for heating purposes by parliamentary constituency.
Answered by Martin McCluskey - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department does not produce bespoke estimates of the number of domestic properties using oil or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for heating by parliamentary constituency. Information on the heating fuels used by households is published by the Office for National Statistics and the devolved administrations.
Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 17 February 2025 to Question 29847 on Death Certificates, if he will publish the findings of his Department's monitoring of the impact of the death certification reforms on the time taken to register deaths.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We believe the answer of 17 February 2025 refers to the answer given to Question 29570. The Department’s monitoring of the impact of death certification reforms, including the time to register a death, includes consideration of:
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what evidence his Department submitted to the Office for National Statistics' review of the ethnicity harmonised standard, including in relation to the recording of Sikhs and Jewish people as ethnic groups.
Answered by Kirsty McNeill - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Scotland Office)
The Scotland Office does not employ staff directly. All staff that join do so on an assignment, loan or secondment for other Government departments, who remain the employers.
As information relating to the demographics of staff is held by the employing departments, the Scotland Office is not able to provide evidence into the review of the ethnicity harmonised standard.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what evidence her Department submitted to the Office for National Statistics' review of the ethnicity harmonised standard, including in relation to the recording of Sikhs and Jewish people as ethnic groups.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
An initial response to the public consultation is due to be published in April, followed by a full report on the consultation in late summer 2026. This report will include all formal responses to the consultation, and the names of the organisations that responded.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the most recent estimate is of the number of qualifying EU citizens on the local election roll in England.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government does not hold data on the number of qualifying EU citizens on the local government electoral register in England.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) previously published estimates of the number of EU citizens eligible to vote in Local Government elections in England but has not produced equivalent estimates following changes to EU citizens’ voting rights implemented through the Elections Act 2022.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate has the Office for National Statistics made of the average house price of a (a) residential dwelling and (b) primary residence dwelling, in each (i) local authority area and (ii) Parliamentary constituency.
Answered by Satvir Kaur - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Rt Hon. gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 6th March is attached.
Asked by: Baroness Whitaker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve the accuracy, consistency, and disaggregation of ethnicity data relating to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities across public services, following research set out in the Advicenow briefing Unpacking imperfect data: Roma overrepresentation and the need for analytical precision, published in November 2025, indicating that current data practices prevent a reliable understanding of levels of need and representation of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children in care.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
Please see the letter attached from the Permanent Secretary for the Office of National Statistics.
The Rt Hon. The Baroness Whitaker
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW
09 March 2026
Dear Baroness Whitaker,
As Permanent Secretary of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking what steps are being taken to improve the accuracy, consistency, and disaggregation of ethnicity data relating to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities across public services, following research set out in the Advicenow briefing Unpacking imperfect data: Roma overrepresentation and the need for analytical precision, published in November 2025, indicating that current data practices prevent a reliable understanding of levels of need and representation of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children in care (HL15068).
The Government Statistical Service’s (GSS) harmonisation team oversees the development and review of harmonised standards [1] for statistical data collection across the public sector. In developing harmonised standards, the GSS harmonisation team considers the data needed to inform policy, for equalities monitoring and for service delivery. This enhances the value from public sector data collections by improving the comparability and coherence of statistics across sources. We acknowledge the difficulty in data collection and disaggregation for some populations, particularly where sample sizes are small.
The current ethnicity harmonised standard [2] is based on the 2011 Census questions across the UK. The questions were reviewed and adjusted so they could be used in the 2021 Census for England and Wales, the 2021 Census for Northern Ireland, and the 2022 Census for Scotland. In these censuses, the category “Gypsy or Irish Traveller” was included as a tick box in England, Wales, and Scotland. In Northern Ireland, this category was tailored specifically to “Irish Traveller”. As part of the 2021 census updates, “Roma” was included as a separate tick box option in all nations.
The GSS is currently reviewing the harmonised standard on ethnicity, with the intention to encourage consistent and inclusive data collection across the Government Statistical Service. As part of the review, the team recently ran a public consultation [3] to gather evidence of user, community, and respondent need for additional tick boxes in the new ethnicity harmonised standard; ethnic groups represented in existing response options, as described above, will be retained.
The proposed new ethnicity harmonised standard for online data collection will be published by the end of 2026. We have published wider detail on the programme of work online [4]. We are working closely with departments and organisations across government to encourage adoption of the harmonised standard and support its effective implementation.
While we encourage data collectors in the GSS to align to harmonised standards, they are not compelled to do so. Some non-statistical data collectors in the public sector and beyond also align, though due to operational constraints sometimes this alignment is not always to the latest standard. Meanwhile, the GSS recognises that some data collectors choose not to align because their needs for data differ. This is why the options for responding to ethnicity questions vary across different data collectors.
Additionally, a team within the UK Statistics Authority is conducting qualitative research with Roma communities in England and Wales, due to be published later this year. The findings will support a more nuanced understanding of their lived experience and specific needs, as well as providing insights to inform statistical producers in considering how Roma identity is represented and captured in data in the future.
Yours sincerely,
Darren Tierney
[2] https://analysisfunction.civilservice.gov.uk/policy-store/ethnicity-harmonised-standard/
[3] https://consultations.ons.gov.uk/harmonisation/gss-ethnicity-harmonisation-consultation/
[4] https://analysisfunction.civilservice.gov.uk/policy-store/review-of-the-ethnicity-harmonised-standard-overview-of-our-redesign-research-to-date/
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what evidence his Department submitted to the Office for National Statistics' review of the ethnicity harmonised standard, including in relation to the recording of Sikhs and Jewish people as ethnic groups.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave on 10 March 2026 to Question UIN 117831.