4. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the Scottish census 2022. (S6O-02715)

National Records of Scotland published the first results from Scotland’s census 2022 on 14 September. The publication represented a historic moment for Scotland, with the largest population ever recorded by Scotland’s census of 5.4 million, an increase of 2.7 per cent since the previous census in 2011. Following September’s publication, NRS will publish further results from Scotland’s census from spring 2024 onwards.

In the summer of 2024, a series of topic data reports will provide new and unique insights into the characteristics of Scotland’s people, including information on ethnicity, religion, the labour market, education and housing. For the first time, data on armed forces veterans, sexual orientation and trans status or history will be included.

The Scottish National Party completely botched Scotland’s census, and it did so because of its ideological obsession with diverging from the rest of the United Kingdom. It will therefore be more difficult to plan for the delivery of public services. National Records of Scotland says that lessons will be learned from this fiasco. Surely there is one main lesson to learn, which is that, in 2031, the census should be UK-wide. Will it be? I am looking for a yes or a no.

NRS is keen to reflect on lessons learned, including how the results that are now being published are received by users, and it is committed to setting those out upon the conclusion of the 2022 census programme in an evaluation report that will be laid before Parliament by the end of 2024.

I am sure that Mr Findlay will be delighted to learn that the Office for Statistics Regulation has awarded Scotland’s census output with national statistics designation, based on quality, good practice and comprehensiveness of the statistics. Achieving such a designation means that the expert independent UK regulator has confidence in the statistics that NRS has produced and that Scotland’s census forms an integral part of the statistical system in the United Kingdom.