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Mr. Hogg: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the provisions of the Census Act 1920 as amended by the Bill? Failure to answer the question would be an offence that was not attended by a penalty.
Mr. Forth: That puts the individual who completes the form in an odd position.
Mr. Sayeed: Perhaps I can clear up the point. The front page of the census form contains a section entitled "Completing your form". I shall read it out for the edification of my right hon. Friend. It states:
- Completion of the Census form is compulsory under the Census Act 1920. If you refuse to complete it, or give false information, you may be liable to a fine. This liability does not apply to Question 10 on religion.
If there is no compulsion to answer the question, that will almost certainly undermine the validity of the question and its ability to achieve the stated policy objectives set out in paragraphs 3, 4 and 8 of the explanatory notes. If some people are prepared to answer the question but others are not, because they think it is intrusive and arrogant, which is my view, or because they are embarrassed, or because they are too idle to do so--the reason could be any or all of these--the resulting disproportionality and unrepresentativeness threaten to undermine the purpose of the Bill.
Let us speculate for a moment that people who would generally describe themselves as Christian do not feel obliged, or do not feel it necessary, to divulge the fact that they are Christian to the Government, whereas those who are Muslim are anxious to divulge that fact to the Government because their community leaders have told them, "If we can make sure that as many Muslims as possible answer the question and are therefore recorded in terms of their numbers, we have read in paragraph 8 of
the explanatory notes to the Bill that we will gets lots of resources because there are lots of us." That, presumably, is the aim behind the Bill, and that would be the motivation for particular groups--I pick Muslims more or less at random--to fill out the form.Do Christians suppose that resources will be allocated to them on the basis of their answers on the census form? That is a question which I hope the Minister will answer. It flows directly from paragraph 8 of the explanatory notes dealing with the formation of policy and the allocation of resources. What assumptions can I make about the allocation of resources to Christians, following the census? I should like to know the answer. Presumably, if we are living in an even-handed, non-discriminatory society, as the Government would like us to think, there can be no distortion of distribution across the groups. If that is the case, I am not sure that I see the point of asking the question.
Matters get worse than that. Although the question proposed seeks to distinguish between Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh, it lumps all the Christians together, for some peculiar reason. Church of England, Catholic, Protestant and all other Christian denominations are all assumed to be the same. Does that apply to Jehovah's Witnesses, for example--I take another example, more or less at random--or to any other sect or denomination that would generally be described as Christian, but may well have very different views, needs, communities or places in society?
Why are the Christians discriminated against by all being lumped together, while we take great care to make sure that Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and Muslims are treated separately? It is all very odd.
Mr. Gray: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who is making a good point. Is it not also peculiar that in the census question, the word "Protestant" is used alongside the term "Church of England"? The Church of England is a Protestant sect, but a great many other Protestant sects are not listed. There is a curious anomaly in the wording of the question, which shows ignorance or lack of care on the part of the Government in wording it.
Mr. Forth: I shall leave those much better versed in matters theological to speculate on what such differences might mean. It is self-evident that there is probably as big a difference between Roman Catholicism and Protestant aspects of the Christian religion as, say, there may be between Buddhism and Hinduism.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough): I am concerned at the right hon. Gentleman's ignorance of non-Christian religions. There is no suggestion that, for example, Muslims should be asked whether they are Sunnis or Ahmadiyas. The right hon. Gentleman is speaking about beliefs within a faith system. Christianity is an overall faith system. There is no suggestion that there should be sub-divisions of other faith systems either. The right hon. Gentleman's suggestion that Buddhists, Sikhs and Muslims are part of the same faith system is offensive to many people.
Mr. Forth: I am not sure that that is what I said at all. I said the reverse: that, whereas the question seeks to distinguish between all those faiths, it lumps all the Christian denominations together.
Mr. Swayne: The distinction to which the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) has drawn
attention--between Sunni Muslims, Shi'ite Muslims or whatever--is the critical information that is required to deliver the promises to which my right hon. Friend has drawn attention in paragraph 8 of the explanatory notes. It is the information on those minorities within what the hon. Lady quaintly called "faith systems" that determines whether they are disadvantaged.
Mr. Forth: I should have thought that that was almost self-evidently the case, but apparently it is not to the hon. Lady.
I do not accept the objectives in paragraph 8, because I do not believe that possible racial disadvantage and so-called social exclusion within particular minority groups will be dealt with by the answers that may voluntarily be given to the question outlined in paragraph 10. I simply do not accept that paragraph 10 can deliver the objectives of paragraph 8, quite apart from the fact that it is an unnecessary and unwarranted intrusion by the state into some of the most private aspects of people's lives. All of that is entirely unsatisfactory. I still hope that we shall get an answer later from the Minister as to why it is believed that racial disadvantage and social exclusion can somehow be determined by the answer to the question in paragraph 10. I see no necessary or obvious relationship between racial or ethnicity distinctions and those set out in paragraph 10--none, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim or Sikh. I just do not see the connection.
In almost every single respect, this Bill fails all the tests. It fails the test of our historic desire to keep the state and the Government out of people's private, personal and, in particular, religious lives. It fails its own test of the dubious objectives set out in paragraphs 3, 4 and 8 of the explanatory notes. It fails the test because it seeks to make the answering of the questions voluntary instead of compulsory, and therefore almost certainly undermines any purpose that it might have had.
The Bill is unnecessary and intrusive. It has some sinister elements, which I believe we should resist strongly. Unless we hear some persuasive answers to these questions from the Minister at the end of the debate, I hope that the House will not give the Bill a Second Reading.
11.23 pm
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough): I simply want to use this opportunity to give some examples of how this kind of information could improve the lives of a substantial number of people in my constituency. I also thought that it might illuminate and teach some hon. Members about why this exercise is worth while.
Let us take, for example, the Muslim faith. For people of that faith, an important and deeply held part of their religion is to bury the dead swiftly. One of the problems faced by Muslims in Slough is that they cannot get deaths registered over the weekend. That causes my constituents deep offence and distress.
The results of a census such as this could inform the planning of registrars of births, marriages and deaths, so that they could ensure that death certificates were issued, deaths were registered and burials could take place at weekends.
Mr. Fabricant: Is the hon. Lady aware that a similar rule exists within the Jewish religion? She will know that
there have been Jews in the United Kingdom for at least 1,000 years. Does she realise that Jewish burials have taken place despite the fact that this Bill has not been enacted?
Fiona Mactaggart: As the hon. Gentleman will know, Jewish organisations support the Bill, partly because of the problems that members of that faith have experienced in ensuring that burials take place swiftly enough.
Mr. Fabricant: That is absolute rubbish--and I know it. [Laughter.]
Mr. Tyrie: The hon. Lady made a serious and important point about the burying of the dead in the Muslim community. There is a practical solution--putting registrars in the hospitals. I have given some thought to the matter; some expense would be involved, but there might also be some saving. Anyway, it is not a laughing matter. What the hon. Lady must explain is why it is essential to organise a census establishing people's religious faith to solve that practical problem.
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