Hansard

There are two elements: users’ needs and the need for population data. The consultation commenced years and years ago. The questions have been developed over a considerable time, as has the stress testing. There are different elements to the consultation. There is consultation on the questions—there are questions on Gaelic for example—and the census form contains sections that relate to different communities. Development of the questions has taken place over recent years and latterly, in recent weeks and months.

Jamie Greene is a member of the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee. I have encouraged officials from National Records of Scotland to keep the committee abreast of all the process related to, and progress on, the census.

I am about to move on to the content of the bill, but the whole census project goes far wider and deeper. Obviously, Jamie Greene will be aware that the fact that the census will be digital will also have an implication for stress testing. Its being digital adds a new dynamic to the census.

All remaining outputs should be published over the two years following the first set of estimates, including those on sexual orientation and transgender status and history. It is essential that we have quality data, so we must use the required time to achieve that. The bill is an important part of that. I am sure that everyone knows that the purpose of the bill is to amend the Census Act 1920, to allow questions on sexual orientation and transgender status and history to be answered on a voluntary basis.

It is widely recognised that there is limited evidence on the experiences of transgender people in Scotland, and there is no fully tested question with which to collect information. Therefore, the census will take a big step forward in order to ensure that we can develop the evidence that is needed to provide support and protection for Scotland’s transgender population.

Sexual orientation is already asked about in most household surveys in Scotland, and it is proposed that the sexual orientation question for the 2021 census will mirror the question that is already used in those other surveys and elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

Society has changed significantly and rapidly in the years since the last census, so we must ensure that the census in 2021 reflects that. As I just reported in my response to Jamie Greene, the need for collecting the information was arrived at through a process of consultation and research. National Records of Scotland has worked, and continues to work, with stakeholders to understand the needs and concerns of the relevant communities.

The power to ask such questions to be answered on a compulsory basis already exists in the Census Act 1920. Refusing or neglecting to answer a census question is an offence under section 8 of that act. We want to ensure that non-completion of the questions that are to be answered voluntarily will not result in the penalties that exist for non-compliance in respect of mandatory questions. It is critical that nobody is, or in any way feels, compelled to answer such important but sensitive questions. The bill therefore seeks to mitigate any concerns about intrusion into private life by making answering the questions voluntary, as was the case with religion when it was included for the first time in the 2001 census.

I am pleased that the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee supported the general principles of the bill in its stage 1 report. I was likewise pleased by the support of parliamentary colleagues at the stage 1 debate on 28 February. In my stage 1 response to the committee and Parliament, I committed to lodging amendments at stage 2 to address the perceived conflation of sex and gender identity in the bill. I delivered on that commitment and, I am glad to say, the committee accepted the amendments.

National Records of Scotland worked with the Equality Network and others on the specific text of the amendments before they were lodged. That work included consulting other interested stakeholders—including the women’s groups that responded to the committee’s call for evidence at stage 1—to highlight the suggested amendments and to seek people’s views on them. I am pleased to say that only support for them was received.

The amendments placed transgender status and history into schedule 1 of the Census Act 1920 as an entry on its own alongside religion and sexual orientation, and removed the provision in the bill that would have added “including gender identity” to the paragraph in that schedule that contains the word “sex”. The amendments have ensured that the census order will be available to make the question on transgender status and history voluntary, which is one of the key purposes of the bill.

The census bill will allow questions on sexual orientation and transgender status and history to be voluntary. However, there is still a subordinate legislation process to follow, which will very soon be under way, to ensure that the questions are included in our 2021 census. I am grateful for the support of Parliament up to this point, and I look forward to the further extensive engagement that lies ahead.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees that the Census (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill be passed.