MPs warn census role should stay
Thursday 20 September 2012
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EmailProposals to scrap the national census could damage social science in Britain, MPs warned today.
The science and technology committee found that the benefits of the census outweigh its financial cost and other surveys were not adequate replacements.
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude announced shortly after the coalition came into power in 2010 that the government would look into alternatives to the census, last carried out in 2011 at a cost of £480 million.
The committee acknowledged there were a range of problems with the census, but committee chairman Andrew Miller said: "Ministers must think hard. The census has provided Britain with one of the richest collections of population data in the world."
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