Census (Return Particulars and Removal of Penalties) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2019-05-13
Topic: Civil Rights
Elizabeth Barker (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the Bill and thank him and his team for the briefing they gave Peers the other day. He is right: this is the first time I have been involved in census legislation. My previous experience of considering the census in great detail was in 1971, when my mum was an enumerator. Most enumerators were women because it was short-term work that working mums could do. She was an enumerator in a working-class area of the west of Scotland. I guess in those days we did not bother to ask about people’s religion because everyone knew what everyone else’s religion was, and if in doubt asked which school they went to I am pleased with the provisions of the Bill, which I hope will command general agreement. It is high time our data gathering became more inclusive. The LGBT community has suffered over time, particularly in the provision of public services, because there has been no basic data from which service planners have been able to work. All the information we get these days—patchy though it is—about LGBT people’s use of the NHS is not population data but data about our use of the NHS. That is all there is to go on, whereas for the rest of the population there is basic data from which projections can and should be made It is right that the Bill will ensure that it is not compulsory to answer that question—it is voluntary—and that there should be no penalty for not doing so. For many people it is still a matter that they wish to remain private. Other people cannot divulge their sexual orientation because they fear for their safety in the communities in which they live. It is therefore right that we should do this in the way that we will I was pleased to read the White Paper and about the great care that has gone into the preparation of the whole census and many of the questions. However, it is not what the Bill is trying to do that is important but what is not said in it. It is not clear what the questions will be and how they will be framed, and that is crucial. My understanding is that while the sexual orientation question has been subject to consultation, the gender identity one has not. I hope there will be extensive consultation with people likely to have to answer that question I understood from our briefing the other day that the sex question is likely to be, "What is your sex? Male or female?"—to be answered by everyone over 16—but the gender identity question is likely to be, "Is your gender the same as the sex you were registered under at birth? Yes/No. Please write in the gender or ‘Prefer not to say’". Working from that, the assumption would be that a transgender woman would tick "Female" for the sex question and tick "No" and write in "Female" for the gender identity question. A non-binary person would tick the sex that they most closely identify with in the sex question and then tick "No" and write "Non-binary" in the gender identity question. A cis person like me would tick the sex assigned at birth in the sex question and "Yes" in the gender identity question. That is the basis on which I am working The standard sex question being left as it has been since 1801 causes a problem for people from three different groups: trans people, non-binary people and intersex people. First, trans people have for many years been filling in the census and have done so in their lived-in identity. Is it anticipated that that will happen from now on and that a trans person will respond in their lived-in identity? We have to bear in mind that the Government are currently consulting on a review of the Gender Recognition Act and these two proposals may come in at the same time. Let us remember that gender recognition is a legal process, not a medical process Secondly, what do the Government expect non-binary people to do? Whatever the Government expect them to do will have to be written into the guidance that goes along with the question. How are the Government going to consult on that The most difficult question, however, is about the smallest group of people: intersex people born with the characteristics of both sexes. As a result of the current way of not legislating properly for intersex people, they are currently assigned a sex at birth to have their birth recorded. Subsequently their sex may be changed. What are those people supposed to do? I know this all sounds horrendously complicated but I have talked to a number of people involved and they are aware that they are filling in a legal document. They want to do it properly. They do not want to deceive; they just want to know what to do, so it is critical that we get the guidance on this right That leads me to my next point, which will perhaps be raised by others, and is about privacy. I understand from the briefing the other day that the data will not be released for up to 100 years. As the Minister will know from our meeting, there is a fear, particularly among the trans community, that while at the moment our society is broadly well disposed towards its members, it may not always be. We are in the middle of a very vicious anti-trans campaign, orchestrated by one or two of our main media outlets. It may be that in 100 years’ time, people may not wish this information about their family to be released. Will the Minister say what might be done with this information in future? It needs to be handled with as much sensitivity as that afforded to religion I have two final two points. First, this will only ever give us a minimum number because there will be all sorts of reasons why people do not respond to the question. When the statistics are released and show that there are far fewer people than we thought, let us not be surprised about that and let us not base public service provision on what will inevitably be a small number. I took the point made by officials that the census is kept as simple as possible to obtain information that cannot be obtained from other sources. That is why we do not ask every question that people would like to ask Secondly, I return to the point I made to the Minister the other day. There is another group of people—men who have never had children—about whom it is extremely difficult to find data. It is possible to work out which women have not had children through their medical records. Why is it important? Currently, 1 million people over the age of 65 do not have children, and we have a health and social care system predicated on the fact that your kids will look after you. It is estimated that by 2030 there will be 2 million people with no children. The trouble is that, because we cannot count them with any degree of accuracy, this significant emerging public policy issue is being ignored. I realise that this matter does not come within this Bill, and I realise, from questions, that the Minister will instantly go away and appoint a working group to look at what I have said. I thought I would throw it in on the off-chance, because I believe it is a significantly overlooked point of public policy. With that, I welcome the Bill very much.