Another great reason why proper induction and ongoing professional development for MPs matters!
(And as somebody who has also had to refresh their understanding of what gilt yields mean in the last 24 hours, this isn’t a criticism of MPs, who also have far bigger demands on their time than I do)
A chart showing the proportion of households that contain an adult with different types of impairment, by tenure group. Social rented housing tends to have the highest proportion of adults with impairments, then owner-occupied housing, then private-rented housing. This effect is particularly pronounced for adults with mobility impairments.
Last week we published a research note by @geographyjim.bsky.social and colleagues on housing for disabled Londoners.
Worth a read - it covers what we know about the ability of London's housing stock to meet disabled Londoners' needs:
data.london.gov.uk/housing/rese...
Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin
Original or #1!
We've just published Housing in London 2025, our annual statistical summary of more or less everything that's happened in London housing.
It's brilliant and you should read it (most of the work was done by colleagues, so it's not egotistical for me to say so).
data.london.gov.uk/housing/hous...
Some of these are upsettingly far away, but still! ☀️
Courage comes in many forms. The bystander at Bondi beach is one example. This piece recounts an extraordinary different kind, where by having a conversation and listening, Nathan Newby talked Mohammad Farooq down from setting off a bomb. Recommend
www.ft.com/content/cd59...
The Commons Library is recruiting a housing policy researcher!
As ever: highly recommended workplace, great people, interesting work, etc etc. Apply!
housesofparliament.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/...
Entertaining myself with the definition of 'pet' being inserted by the Renters Rights Act 2025.
Probably should add:
'(e) Fear of retribution from the animal if otherwise'
to cover most cats
Thank you! I hope so!
Excited to be starting a secondment at the Greater London Authority next week, covering as best I can for @geographyjim.bsky.social in the realm of housing data and analysis!
Most of us are in a wobbly position when it comes to our understanding of immigration numbers.
How would things go if we didn’t make these half-remembered statistics so central to how we form and articulate opinions?
georginasturge.substack.com/p/how-to-mak...
Why are we hooked on bad vibes when they don't reflect reality?
I took a deep-dive into the data, in search of what is really going on.
open.substack.com/pub/georgina...
Oh, bugger. I mean, 97 is a bloody good innings, but the world is a sadder place with no Tom Lehrer in it. What a brilliant man
How do leasehold transactions vary by constituency? An annotated map of the percentage of sales that were leasehold by constituency in 2024 in England and Wales. Annotations explain: 23% of residential property sales were leasehold in England and Wales in 2024. 98% of flats were sold leasehold, compared with only 6% of houses. There was also a lot of variation between constituencies. There were some leasehold 'hotspots' in areas where it's more common for houses to be sold leasehold, including parts of the North West and Yorkshire. Other hotspots are areas where flats make up a large proportion of overall sales, like central London.
I first did the constituency analysis quite a few years ago, but it's been good to bring it up to date. Some interesting patterns.
I've published a new briefing bringing together the stats on leasehold housing in England (and a bit in Wales). Featuring:
- MHCLG data on leasehold stock
- Trends in transactions over time and for constituencies
- Experiences of leaseholders
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...
2031 census confirmed! 🎉
"Today HM Government has commissioned the Office for National Statistics to conduct a mandatory, questionnaire-based, whole-population census of England and Wales in 2031."
www.ons.gov.uk/news/news/hm...
okay but be fair the British meaning of "billion" has changed within living memory, books I had as a kid in the 80s sometimes still used the word "milliard" for 10^6 and saved "billion" for 10^9
Heading home after a trip to Edinburgh for IPVIS, a tiny conference for data nerds working in parliaments. It's great to have a space to talk to people with the same weirdly specific job as me. Everyone had lots to say about the nuts and bolts of what we do, and how we try to do things better.
That's my mildly self-indulgent look back at the 2021 census as it played out in my own work. We will wait to see what the next decade brings, starting with the government's decision on the recommendation from the acting National Statistician.
A change in constituency boundaries not long after the first census releases could have put a spanner in the works, but ONS, NISRA and NRS have all published data for the new boundaries as well - making post-election analysis like this tool possible:
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/census-data-...
The census is behind a lot of our constituency data dashboards like this one - it's a rich source of local-level data and me and my colleagues do our best to help MPs make the most of it to understand their areas.
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/constituency...
The 2021 census featured several new questions, including some on sexual orientation and gender identity 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️. Mapping some of the early data on this was fascinating! commonslibrary.parliament.uk/2021-census-...
It feels like a very long time since I wrote the first edition of this, our briefing on preparations for the 2021 census in England and Wales.
Planning for a census starts years in advance, usually featuring a consultation on topics.
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...
Now that the 2031 census recommendation is here, it feels like I've done a full "census cycle" as a professional census nerd.
It's a brilliant part of my job, being paid to pay attention to something that's ever-changing and the setting for so many interesting debates about identity and society.
A cool resource, literally❄️
And now I get an afternoon to explore Manchester 🐝
Just had a v interesting couple of days at the @ukdataservice.bsky.social UK Census User Conference - hearing from ONS and others about future plans, and from researchers about how they're using 2021/2 census data.
Official recommendation on the 2031 census due next week, apparently 👀
