Babarinde’s proposal has garnered support from cross‑party MPs, among them former Labour deputy prime minister David Lammy and Conservative Sir James Cleverly, who left the shadow cabinet this summer to stand for Mayor of London.
The Eastbourne MP said he introduced the bill after comments made by former Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who defected to Reform UK earlier this year.
In 2015, Braverman wrote that she was British Asian but “cannot claim to be English” despite being born and educated in England., external
She reiterated her stance this week on X, describing Englishness as “an ethnicity” and stating that “it is not racist to say this.”
“To say I’m English is to adopt a laissez‑faire, anything‑goes attitude to ethnicity, citizenship and identity. It also denies me my Asian heritage,” she added.
Legislation setting out the detailed census questions for England and Wales is based on recommendations from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS told the BBC that the Government Statistical Service has been developing a new approach to ethnicity questions in official surveys since 2022, with an update due for publication on Thursday.
This may result in a recommendation to revise the ethnicity question for the 2031 census, though questionnaires are typically finalised much closer to the census date.
The legislation outlining the questions for the most recent census was published in summer 2020, preceding the March 2021 census.
The Scottish Government postponed its census until 2022 due to the Covid pandemic.
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