Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department was invited by the Office for National Statistics to provide evidence or input into its review of the ethnicity harmonised standard; and what evidence it submitted, including in relation to the recording of Sikhs and Jewish people as ethnic groups.

The Department was invited by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) to provide evidence. The Department has not responded, deferring to NHS England, who are leading work on the Unified Information Standard for Protected Characteristics (UIPSC). The UISPC programme is a wide-ranging review of how the National Health Service records data in relation to protected characteristics, workforce/employment, and patient datasets and associated surveys.

NHS England has been fully engaged with the work on the ethnicity harmonised standard throughout the development of the UISPC. The ONS sit on the UISPC Publication Steering Group, which was established to bring together key representatives from NHS system partners and cross Government agencies.

NHS England reviewed the consultations from the ONS on the 2031 Census and the Government Statistical Service on the harmonised standard on ethnicity. It has been agreed that once the UISPC report recommendations are made to the Department, ministers will review and consider next steps, including how best to consult more widely.