Office for National Statistics

• This policy allows over-18s to possess a maximum of 25 grams of cannabis for personal use and grow up to three plants at home.
• The UK government cites concerns about the risk to mental health associated with using cannabis as a justification for supporting prohibition.

Cannabis and mental health

• There is extensive research exploring the relationship between cannabis and mental health problems, such as psychosis.
• The evidence suggests that some people may be more vulnerable than others to developing psychosis through cannabis use.
• The risk to mental health associated with cannabis, then, is relatively low.

Alcohol and tobacco: regulated but riskier

• Unlike cannabis, alcohol is regulated in the UK.
• As with cannabis, there are risks to mental health as a consequence of using alcohol.
• The risk of developing depression among heavy alcohol use is significant: one in two will experience depression.
• So despite alcohol being regulated or legal, the risks to a person’s mental health are greater than those posed by cannabis.

Public health

• In contrast, German policy reform includes a public health education programme which aims to reduce the risks of using cannabis.
• In 2007, when the Labour government introduced a ban on smoking in public areas, this wasn’t supported by many people.
• The risks to health from using cannabis, then, are relatively small compared to regulated drugs such as alcohol and tobacco.
• As the UK public finances continue to be squeezed, particularly around the NHS, persisting with the prohibition of cannabis is a missed opportunity for the nation’s health and a costly policy for its public services.

Mark Monaghan receives funding from UK Government, Cabinet Office and the ESRC. He has in the past received funding from the Nuffield Foundation. Ian Hamilton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• Scholars have expressed concern that the government intends to scrap the census altogether, in favour of using other, administrative sources of population data.
• The issue is not whether administrative data can supplement census data – it undoubtedly can.
• They argue that using only alternative sources of information without the census to compare them against could ultimately lead to inaccuracies.

An unparalleled resource

• It is this ambition to collect data about the complete population that makes the census so unique, unparalleled by much smaller social surveys.
• The data collected in this way is crucial to understanding the changing social and demographic geographies of the UK.
• As well as the finances, there are also questions around the survey’s efficacy, when multiple organisations already gather citizen data as a matter of routine.

Alternative sources

• Most of the data is now collected and disseminated electronically rather than on paper.
• There are also ever more ways to freely explore and visualise the data.
• The ONS’s consultation document, entitled “The future of population and migration statistics in England and Wales”, suggests that various sources of administrative data can be linked and collated to create what is, in effect, a pseudo-census.

Potential for inaccuracy

• A lot of effort has been made by the ONS to explore what it terms “census alternatives” and to understand their potential advantages and disadvantages.
• Imagine, for example, that we used the national pupil database to estimate the ethnic composition of neighbourhoods.
• Generally, however, the more we zoom into such smaller data-sets, to explore neighbourhood-level patterns and differences, the more the possibility for inaccuracy increases.
• It provides a lot of geographically detailed data about people and places, but that information is updated infrequently.

• As a geographer, interested in detailed understandings of where people live, that is my preference.
• I agree with the signatories of the open letter that the government has not convincingly argued for scrapping the census.

Richard Harris had received funding from various organisations, including ESRC-UKRI, to develop research that uses census data.

• A year and a half later, many of those Ukrainian refugees who reached the UK are again finding themselves homeless.
• Government statistics published on August 15 show that 7,300 Ukrainian households have been classified as homeless, including 4,740 households with children.
• Since February 2022, over 180,000 Ukrainians have arrived in the UK via two housing schemes.
• The Ukraine Family Scheme allows Ukrainians to join family members who are already based in the UK, while Homes for Ukraine allows UK citizens to host Ukrainian nationals with no links to the UK.

Securing accommodation

• Over 80% of hosts have reported problems helping Ukrainian guests secure private accommodation.
• Alternative accommodation cannot always be secured in the same location, meaning families may have to leave school places and other support networks.
• A survey of 1,200 Homes for Ukraine hosts found that only 12% had been provided with local authority support to help guests to find private rented accommodation.

Long-term change

• Central government homelessness guidance needs to be updated to provide clearer information about appropriate responses for homeless Ukrainians.
• The government should commit to reviewing these arrangements before the second anniversary of the conflict, in February 2024.
• Some local authorities have moved to provide rent deposits and incentives to local landlords to rent to Ukrainians.

• The research finds that, for two in three (66%) immigrants, the process to receive credit products takes longer than it should due to applicants' lack of UK credit history.
• Only one in four (26%) of immigrants who moved to the UK in the last ten years have experienced fully online processes to access credit products and services.
• This imbalance arises when an individual moves to a new country, leaving their credit history behind in their previous country.
• Gaining access to an applicant’s previous credit history provides lenders a more accurate view of a consumer’s financial situation.