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Mr. David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Tyrie: No. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I have already given way seven or eight times--[Hon. Members: "To Opposition Members"]--and I had better move on. Initially, only Opposition Members sought to intervene. However, in view of that demand, I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. David Taylor: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for being susceptible to persuasion. As no penalty is associated with the failure or refusal to supply the information specified in the Bill, could the hon. Gentleman give his definition of compulsion? As providing the information would be a voluntary act, to which compulsory element does he so object?
Mr. Tyrie: I wish that the hon. Gentleman had controlled himself for a moment, because I was about to deal with precisely that point. I am holding a copy of the Census Act 1920, which makes it absolutely clear that it is an offence not to fill in the questionnaire in full. The Bill makes it equally clear that religion will be added to the schedule listing the questions that it will be an offence not to answer. However, although not answering the question will be an offence, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) said, there will not be a penalty for not answering it. It will be a unique case in English law.
Mr. David Taylor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Tyrie: No. I should like to make a little bit progress in my speech.
Mr. David Taylor: On that very point.
Mr. Tyrie: No. I have given way, I think, eight times, and I really should like to make some progress.
Extraordinarily, although it is an offence not to fill in the census, in this specific case, no penalty will be applied to those who fail to provide the information. Earlier, I inquired whether such a bizarre state of affairs existed anywhere else in British primary law. I sought an answer to that question from the Library and from a professor of
law at London university, but no one could tell me of one example in primary English law in which a legal duty is imposed for the first time on people but the civil penalty for non-compliance is waived. It is very curious state of affairs.I do not like this Bill, which is unnecessarily intrusive. In principle, I do not like censuses, which I am not sure necessarily gather much information of value, although I acknowledge that some public good can come from them. I have not been convinced by anything that I have heard yet in this debate that anything of benefit would come from adding religion to the 1920 Act.
11.38 pm
Mr. Richard Ottaway (Croydon, South): I hope that, having established the principle of dealing with private Members' Bills in Government time, Ministers will make Government time available for consideration of the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Bill, which deals with a matter of deep significance for Opposition Members.
I rise with some trepidation to say that Opposition Front Benchers support the Bill. However, I hasten to tell my hon. Friends--at least I hope that they are still my hon. Friends--that they have a free vote in this matter.
Mr. Hogg: We always have a free vote. We are paid for our opinion--nobody else's.
Mr. Ottaway: The reason why my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) has a free vote is so that he may express his opinions, and I shall come to those in a second.
We recognise that certain information is necessary to achieve the objective of good government. For example, we agree with the statements in paragraph 64 of the White Paper that the information could be of help in identifying ethnic minority sub-groups, especially those originating from the Indian sub-continent, a point made by right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). It may be of interest to the House to know that such a question is already included in the census in Northern Ireland, where the information is used to help in the monitoring of equality policies.
I share my hon. Friends' concerns about the dubious benefit that is to be derived from the legislation, but that is not a reason for not trying. If there is some benefit to be derived from the information, it is worth having, and that is why--on balance--we support the Bill. However, I have listened closely to what my hon. Friends have said and, if it is felt appropriate to move amendments to cover those points in Committee, we shall not hesitate to do so.
Mr. Gray: In Northern Ireland, the census asks for a distinction between Roman Catholics and Protestants, which information is important in the delivery of proper government in Northern Ireland. If the census is to aid the delivery of proper government on the mainland of Great Britain, can my hon. Friend tell us by what mechanism Government aid can possibly be allocated to any religious group on the basis of the information gained? The answer is not through the standard spending assessment, which takes account of race.
Mr. Ottaway: I shall come to the proposed question, but the issue of what is done with the information is a
matter for the person who assesses it and tries to make a decision on what will be done with it. My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) alluded to the important point about whether much of the census can be replaced by market research. The census will cost the enormous sum of £254 million and I strongly suspect that much of the information gleaned from it is available from market research companies. The level of detail in the data that are held by private companies is remarkable. What is more, it is held on a postcode basis, which enables business and anybody else who wishes to to analyse the data. As usual, business is far ahead of Government and while we do not quarrel with the need for a census in 2001, an analysis should be made before the next census in 2011 of how much can be obtained from the private sector instead of through the lumbering process of the census.
Mr. David Taylor: The hon. Gentleman seems to be developing the theory that successive censuses are less valuable because market research organisations can provide alternative information. Would it astonish him to learn that much of the information that market research companies collect is rooted in the information collected in the census?
Mr. Ottaway: That may or may not be right, but much of the information is also obtained from examining the size of a person's house. Aerial photography plays an important part in assessing the wealth and prosperity of a particular region. I am not sure whether market research, which is being done not on a yearly, monthly or weekly basis, but on a daily basis, can wait 10 years for the next census.
The organisation Christian Research estimates that 65 per cent of the UK is Christian and that non-Christian religions comprise 8 per cent, with at least 27 per cent of the country being agnostic. That information is available already, before the need for a census. It leads to the very important point made by the National Secular Society, that if, for example, the census shows that 65 per cent. have indicated that they are Christian, one could get an inflated idea of the numbers of religious adherents. There is a very big difference between being a member of a particular religion and a follower of that religion, and the answer would not address the difference. That is an important point, which we shall raise in Committee.
With the Churches' attendances falling rapidly, those ticking the "None" box could quite conceivably be the largest category. It would be interesting to compare those professing to have a religion with attendance at places of worship.
I now come to the question of compulsion. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham referred a great deal to the speech of Lord Stoddart in the other place. If I had been Lord Stoddart I would have made exactly the same speech at the time. It was based on the fact that the Bill before the other place did not have the no-liability element that we have in the Bill today. In fact, it was a matter of some surprise to us that on Second Reading in the other place the Government argued for compulsion and for a fine. We welcome the fact that they have revised that view.
Mr. Hogg: My hon. Friend is only partly right about that. Obviously, the fact that failure to respond is not an
offence punishable by a penalty is an improvement, but the point that the noble Lord was making was that this information, whether given voluntarily or as a result of compulsion, could be of value to certain people, and he cited governments headed by somebody like Hitler. That was his broad point: that it could be used by a discriminating Government. He was not focusing particularly on whether disclosure was voluntary or compulsory.
Mr. Ottaway: I do not quarrel with that proposition, but if answering the question is voluntary--I shall come to the voluntary nature in a moment--it is a matter of choice for an individual whether or not he fills in the answer. Obviously, he will be aware of the consequences of doing so, and will have to accept the consequences.
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