Ian White: The statistical impact of leaving the EU
27 April 2016

As the Bard said “Parting is such sweet sorrow”, but what will be the effect on UK statistics if the Brexiteers win the vote on 23 June? We will have probably heard enough fear and fiction by then on matters of border controls, trade agreements, economic sustainability, employment, security, cheap European flights and the cost of overseas mobile phone calls, but will any decision to leave the EU have an effect on the extent and quality of UK statistics? And particularly those that are produced to meet current EU regulatory requirements, covering such activities as the Census and Labour Force Surveys. The answer is probably, at first glance at least, a reassuring not a lot.

Many of the current series of socio-demographic statistics produced by ONS – local area population estimates, projections, the labour force survey, the decennial census-based outputs, and the like – are more likely than not to continue into the future. But these will, of course, be subject to natural evolution in order to meet, in one direction, ever demanding user requirements, and, in the other, ever diminishing budgets.

In some areas (such as the Census in particular) the obligation to conform to the exact letter of the EU law has not, in any case, resulted in a total UK commitment. This is particularly so on those matters where the domestic users’ requirements for data are not coincident with those of the Eurocrats in Luxembourg. Not all topics demanded, for example, by Eurostat under the terms of the EU Census Regulation No. 763/2008 * (such as access to a bath/shower, useful floor space, or age of dwelling) were included in the 2011 Census. On other hand, some Census topics on which data is now regularly collected (ethnicity, religion, long-term illness, and car availability, for example) are not required by EU law at all. So it would seem that much of the Census is designed to meet the UK’s domestic needs rather than being shaped in Brussels. This will continue to be the case as long as the Census itself continues. Where data on particular topics will not be collected from households in 2021 via the proposed online Census, the option to derive and link data from administrative source such as the Land Registry or HMRC will be open to ONS statisticians - subject to data sharing agreements – regardless of the status of the UK’s membership of the EU.

Waiting patiently to get out of Brussels via the train station

Indeed, the underlying obligation to the partnership with other EU Members in the European Statistics System (ESS), in general, and the EU Regulation No. 223/2009**  on European Statistics and any future EU Census Hub in particular, is likely to continue whatever the outcome of the vote in June. This partnership extends to the current non-EU members of EFTA (namely Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland), and will no doubt continue to extend to the UK too should it decide to leave the Union. Much of the data that ONS produces is to meet such ESS requirements.

Whatever the outcome in June, ONS will, no doubt, wish to continue its participation in European statistical forums such as the Eurostat’s Census and Population Statistics Workings Groups and the UN Economic Commission for Europe’s Census Work Session meetings. Through these forums, the UK has played a significant role in shaping the structure of international Censuses and population statistics in the past, and will want to do so again.

Of more concern to the domestic user, however, is the effect that any decision to leave the EU will have on the continuation of the UK as a statistical entity. In the event of a Brexit win the pressure for another independence referendum north of the border will undoubtedly prove irresistible to an SNP Government in Edinburgh. One can only imagine, next time, a more resolute outcome and perhaps, as a consequence, even more fractured statistics across the UK than currently exist. For more than 150 years since the Registrar General for Scotland had the independent authority to conduct Censuses in Scotland, the attempts to thoroughly harmonise the question content, and thus the statistical outputs across the UK, have met with only partial success. Even the concerted efforts and formal agreement of the National Statistician and the Registrars General for Scotland and Northern Ireland in 2005 to strive towards a harmonised Census in 2011 were not entirely successful. What chance then of achieving such UK harmonisation with a wholly independent Scottish Government?

Watch this space.

Note: Ian White was involved, prior to his retirement from ONS in 2014, on each census since 1971. He is currently working with the UNFPA in Burma (Myanmar) editing a series of thematic reports on the Myanmar 2014 Census - the first census there for 30 years. His long-awaited book on the history of the Census in the UK has now been brought up to date and is awaiting a new publisher.

Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the MRS Census and Geodemographic Group unless otherwise specifically stated.

* EU Census Regulation No. 763/2008

** EU Census Regulation No. 223/2009