Census

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 March 1965.

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Photo of Mrs Judith Hart Mrs Judith Hart , Lanark 12:00, 18 March 1965

I agree that there is a difference of opinion. I know of no subject which absorbs the statisticians more than the study of bias, exactly what constitutes it and how to avoid it. I was about to say that, rather than the 1 per cent. inquiry of the census type, my hon. Friend is thinking more, I suggest, of special inquiries, using the interviewer. He is not really talking of modifications of this or any census as such. I agree entirely on that, and I think that for certain special purposes it would be very good to have a special inquiry using interviewers, in which case one could have much more elaborate information collected because it could be asked for and one could be sure that the interviewers were highly trained and knew what they were about.

My hon. Friend asked particularly for information about fertility, and I think that something ought to be said about this. As he knows, there are the annual statistics in the Registrar-General's Report, and the Annual Statistics of the Registrar-General for Scotland, and other statistics, but a closer analysis is only possible of attainment by way of the kind of questions—the block of questions—such as those included in the 1961 census; that is, fertility according to educational attainments, or social class, which are subjects of the greatest interest to social scientists, and there must be more information.

For example, there are such questions as the age at which the woman married; the age at which she bore a child, and the birth intervals for women of particular ages, and particular marriage durations. This information, as I have said, is at present based on the 1961 census, and the 1961 fertility report is due before the end of this year, and it is intended to consider the repeating of these questions in the 1971 census so that there will be a 10-year gap. But these questions take up a tremendous amount of space in the census form; large families have to be catered for, and something might have to be sacrificed in order not to make the form too unwieldy.

Obtaining this kind of information regularly is very necessary, particularly at a time of rapid social change, and one looks at the fertility statistics with great interest in order to see, for example, if there are differences in the new housing areas from other areas, irrespective of social class. Incidentally, I would say in passing that I know of no more fascinating source-book for the social scientist than the Report on the Family Census of 1946 on "The Trend and Pattern of Fertility in Great Britain".

The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) asked some provocative questions, including the production of a Gaelic form, and whether one was not entitled to presume that, since the Welsh people had a Welsh form, there should be a Gaelic form in Scotland. The answer to that, probably, is that of the 80,000 Gaelic speaking people, only 1,000 in 1961 were not bilingual. Where they are not bilingual, there is the need for a translated form, but the total of 1,000 is not sufficiently substantial to justify a Gaelic form. Nor has there been one for many, many years. It would be turning back the pages of history if we were to issue a Gaelic form. I understand that the reason why there is a Welsh form in Wales is because a higher proportion of Welsh people is not bilingual.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about the 100 per cent. districts in Scotland, as they are termed, and the basis on which they were considered. The answer is, not because of the introduction of more people because of the arrival of, for example, new industry, but because they are areas of depopulation. It is not growth, but depopulation, and we want to know about depopulation, and what it can show about internal migration within Britain. It is one of the aspects of statistical information about which least knowledge is established.