FOI reference: FOI-2026-3646
You asked
I would like a break down of the figure of White English ethnicity for England residents from your Census 2021.
The white ethnic group section of the Census for England residents allows only 1 tick box but for 5 identities of Irish, Scottish, Welsh, English, and British and so you have no way of giving a break down of who specifically ticked white English for their ethnicity? As there is no way you can do that because of the way the question is set up and so I wish to use the FOI Act 2000 to also ask if you agree with me on that point, i.e. you have no way of gaining the precise figure of people of white English ethnicity for residents in England from your Census 2021 do you?
We said
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request.
The 2021 Census ethnic group question did not include a separate tick-box category for "White English". Within the White ethnic group, respondents could select one of the available tick-box options or choose "Any other White background" and provide a write-in response.
As a result, it is not possible to produce a count of all people who identify as "White English", as respondents who may identify as White English could have selected one of the available tick-box categories rather than using the write-in option. Therefore, we cannot determine the total number of people who consider themselves to be White English from Census 2021 data.
However, we can provide information on those respondents who specifically wrote in "White English" under the "Any other White background" response option.
Published Census 2021 write-in response data show that 23,678 people provided a write-in response of "White English".
The write-in response data are available in the table CT2021_0268 Ethnic group.
If you have any further questions on this, please email census.customerservices@ons.gov.uk