Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent discussions he has had with the Royal British Legion on their Count Them In campaign.

The Ministry of Defence supports the aspiration of the Royal British Legion to include questions on the Armed Forces Community in the 2021 Census. In June 2016 I wrote to the National Statistician to formally request a review of the decision not to include such questions in the 2021 Census. I explained that an ability to identify veterans through direct questioning would provide data that is detailed enough to allow local authorities, Government Departments and other public bodies to meet their Armed Forces Covenant obligations and design and measure local interventions for veterans. At the same time I wrote to the Royal British Legion on behalf of the Secretary of State and the Service Chiefs to explain that Defence considers the inclusion of a veterans marker in the 2021 Census to be the best way to provide an accurate benchmark for the veteran community. Defence Ministers have not met with the Royal British Legion to discuss this issue.

I welcome the Office for National Statistics' decision to set up a working group to look into the legal, methodological and process obstacles currently standing in the way of data sharing and data linking across Government. Data sharing has the potential to fill in some gaps in our knowledge of the veterans' community, although it remains our position that an accurate baseline could only be obtained through the inclusion of a veterans' marker in the 2021 Census.