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Mr. Michael Jabez Foster (Hastings and Rye): The census procedure must be accurate, and it must be wrong to provide inaccurate answers to the questions asked. I see no inconsistency in providing for a question that is wholly voluntary, giving the form-filler the option of answering it, and imposing no penalty on those who do not answer it. A person in that category is entirely distinguishable from one who provides bizarre or inaccurate information whose effect would be to defeat the object of the census itself, which is to provide accurate information that can be used for planning and other purposes.
Those who are particularly keen to provide information about their religion have said that they wish to do so, perhaps because they are proud of their religion or faith and wish to make it known. For them, there would seem to be very little purpose in inaccurately filling in the form.
Dr. Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon): Religion is a very personal matter, and it is quite possible for people to be unsure whether they are one thing or the other. Some people may be in the midst of a conversion, for example, perhaps thinking that they are religious when they are not. Such people may be worried about providing inaccurate information, particularly if the information that they provide is to be checked. I think that that issue goes to the heart of the problems with the Bill.
Mr. Foster: I am not entirely sure that most people are confused about their religious convictions. However, even if they were, the census is only a snapshot, recording the particular religion that people profess when completing the form. I believe that no one is likely to be prosecuted if he or she has a change of view after completing the form.
Mr. Bercow: I listened intently and with interest to the intervention of the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris). In relation to the scenario that he described, in reflecting on the percentage of those who may fall into that category, may I ask the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Foster) how many noughts he thinks there would be after the decimal point before a figure appeared?
Mr. Foster: I suspect that the percentage would be very small indeed, and that very few people change their religion. Although I do not think that the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon was asking an irrelevant question, I think that the number of such people would not be important statistically. What is important is that the information given is accurate to the best of the form-filler's ability. I believe that the Bill provides for that, and I believe that it will happen. What is most important is accuracy, and the Government's ability to analyse the information.
Mr. Tyrie: The hon. Gentleman has laid great stress on the need for accurate responses. The Government spokesman in the Lords pointed out that if the question
were voluntary, the information collected, not only on that question but on others, would be rendered valueless. He said:
- it has been shown that making a question voluntary seriously affects the response not only to the question itself where response bias could devalue the information obtained, but also as regards other questions because people are confused about some questions being voluntary and others being compulsory.--[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 January 2000; Vol. 608, c. 1717.]
Mr. Foster: I do not believe that that is so. All that the proposal will do is affect the sample. Obviously, the larger the sample, the more accurate the outcome. The only thing that will have an effect on its level of inaccuracy is people giving inaccurate responses. As in any opinion poll or survey there is wide variance, and the more people complete it, the more accurate it is. If fewer people choose not to complete the census because of its voluntary nature, it will not be as accurate.
My perception is that those to whom, owing to religious conviction, the matter is important, will complete the form. Indeed, religious faiths are keen for their followers to be able to do so. For those reasons, although it is right that there should be the opportunity to say no to the question, it is also right that the people who are asked a question should answer truthfully.
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): This is all becoming ludicrously confusing. What started as a fairly straightforward, if unacceptable, proposition that the state should pry into some of the most private aspects of people's lives through the vehicle of the census--I know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you would not want us to debate that at this stage, although I hope that we shall have an opportunity to do so at some length on Third Reading--has become a matter of important detail.
Even from the speeches so far, it has become obvious--I did not have the privilege of serving on the Committee--that this is a very confused and muddled little Bill. Not only is it unacceptable in principle, it is becoming unworkable in practice. In other words, it is the ideal Bill for this Government to try to slip through the House as quietly and surreptitiously as possible. As you will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we do not have quiet and surreptitious Bills at this stage of the Session, as all Bills receive equal and proper scrutiny.
Mr. Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton): Will the right hon. Gentleman speculate on how the Government might want to check the accuracy of answers that people give to the question?
Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman has pre-empted something that I wanted to come to later. He will not want to deflect me from my introductory remarks--will he? He will recognise that we are at the throat-clearing stage, and that we shall come to the substance in due course. I am sure that, with his generosity of spirit, he would not want to hurry me through that process.
These are important matters and no one should be under any illusion that there is any levity in our approach to dealing with them. They touch on some of the most important aspects of the relationship between the
Government and the authorities on the one hand, and the Government and the citizen on the other. Although the Government seem to treat such matters with the greatest levity, I hope that we on the Opposition Benches will never do so. In that I include Liberal Democrat Members, who I know take these issues seriously, as we have seen in the context of other legislation.A series of questions must be addressed. I shall not dwell on the question of principle; that is a Third Reading matter. We are faced, under the amendment, with the question of practicability. What on earth will be the value of a census if it is to result from questions that are either voluntary, and therefore variable in the response that they elicit, and/or false--the matter of the amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Ottaway)?
I should have thought that, up to now, the general assumption has been that the value of conducting a census is that the authorities gain proper knowledge of matters that are relevant to policy making, which allows them more effectively to discharge the responsibilities and duties of Government. I would question whether religion is one of those matters, but that is a subject to which I shall return later.
5.15 pm
Dr. Harris: The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that there are many things one can learn about people that will make the job of Government easier. How people vote would be an extremely useful thing for Governments to know, but putting such a question on a form, even if answering it were voluntary, and saying that people will have committed an offence if the question is answered inaccurately, would make us pause for serious thought. Those who oppose the amendment have to answer the question: where will it all end?
Mr. Forth: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing up that theme--I might want to pick it up later, albeit not in the current debate--because it does indeed give rise to serious thoughts. If we can start by probing people's religious beliefs, where will we finish? However, as I said, that is a matter for another debate, probably on Third Reading.
Mr. Fallon: My right hon. Friend should not be surprised--the current Government might well want to count up the number of people who have lost faith.
Mr. Forth: I suspect that they would not want to count the membership of a group that is growing so alarmingly, as other sources of information have told us.
We must directly face the question of the extent to which the answering of the questions is voluntary, rather than compulsory, and hence what value can be placed on those answers. We must also examine the dimension embodied in the amendment, which is the result of people giving false information in reply to the question. Even having heard the eloquent introduction provided by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South, I am torn about how to vote on the amendment. I can perceive its attraction, but I am bothered by the perversity of not having a penalty for providing false information in the context of something as important as the census. We shall have to think our way through the problem, and I shall
probably do my thinking aloud, as is my custom; not only will doing so help me, but it might help other hon. Members.My difficulty arises from the fact that, even if we do not dwell excessively on the extent to which reliable information is required in a census, which is linked to the question of whether or not answering the question is compulsory and penalties are attached, a new dimension altogether is brought to the fore when we consider the possibility of false information being provided. If people are going to be given the idea that they need not bother to answer the question, we have to judge the probability of a large number of people exercising their option not to answer the question and thereby entirely invalidating the data it provides.
In addition, the problem of differing answers has bothered me right from the start. I have heard it suggested that certain religious faiths are keen on the question being included. The implication of that is there is confidence that people of some faiths will be more eager to answer the question than those of other faiths. If answering the question is voluntary, not compulsory, that differential effect is likely to be exaggerated and will threaten to undermine the validity of the census itself.
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