Population (Statistics) Act 1960

1 Amendment of Population (Statistics) Act, 1938.

(1) The [1 & 2 Geo. 6. c. 12.] Population (Statistics) Act, 1938, as amended by subsequent enactments, including this Act, shall have permanent effect; and accordingly subsection (4) of section seven thereof (which provides for the Act to have temporary effect) is hereby repealed.

(2) The Schedule to this Act shall be substituted for the Schedule to the said Act of 1938.

2 Amendments as to certificates of still-birth in England and Wales.

(1) In section eleven of the [1 & 2 Eliz. 2. c. 20.] Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1953 (which contains special provisions as to the registration of still-births), for paragraph (a) of subsection (1) (which requires the informant to deliver to the registrar a written certificate that the child was not born alive, signed either by a registered medical practitioner or a certified midwife) there shall be substituted the following paragraph—

“(a) deliver to the registrar a certificate in the prescribed form signed by a registered medical practitioner who was present at the birth or has examined the body of the child, or, if no registered medical practitioner was so present or has examined the body, by a certified midwife who was so present or has examined the body, being a certificate stating that the child was not born alive and, where possible, stating to the best of the knowledge and belief of the person signing it the cause of death and the estimated duration of the pregnancy; or”.

(2) In the said section eleven, after subsection (1) there shall be inserted the following subsection—

“(1A) Every registered medical practitioner or certified midwife who is present at a still-birth or examines the body of a still-born child shall, at the request of any person who is a qualified informant as to the birth, give to that person a certificate for the purposes of paragraph (a) of the foregoing subsection.”

(3) In subsection (2) of the said section eleven, for the words " the foregoing subsection " there shall be substituted the words " subsection (1) of this section " .

3 Amendments as to certificates of still-birth in Scotland.

In section one of the [1 & 2 Geo. 6. c. 55.] Registration of Still-Births (Scotland) Act, 1938, in paragraph (a) of subsection (2) for the words " in attendance ", in both places where they occur, there shall be substituted the word " present " .

(2) In the said section one, after subsection (2) there shall be inserted the following subsection—

“(2A) Every registered medical practitioner or certified midwife who was present at a still-birth or examined the body of a still-born child shall, at the request of any person who by virtue of the Registration Acts is required to give information touching that birth, give to that person a certificate for the purposes of paragraph (a) of the last foregoing subsection; and the certificate shall, where possible, state (in addition to the other matters referred to in that paragraph) to the best of the knowledge and belief of the person signing it the estimated duration of the pregnancy of the mother of the child.”

4 Additional matters to be included in annual reports of Registrar General and Registrar General for Scotland.

The general abstracts which under section nineteen of the [1 & 2 Eliz. 2. c. 37.] Registration Service Act, 1953, and section seven of the [17 & 18 Vict. c. 80.] Registration of Births, Deaths, and Marriages (Scotland) Act, 1854, are required to be sent annually to the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State respectively and to be laid before Parliament shall include the statistical information compiled—

(a) from particulars furnished to registrars in England and Wales and in Scotland respectively under the Population (Statistics) Act, 1938, on the registration of births, still-births and deaths registered in the last preceding year; and

(b) from certificates delivered to registrars in those countries respectively under section eleven of the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1953, or, as the case may be, section one of the Registration of Still-Births (Scotland) Act, 1938, on the registration of still-births so registered.

5 Short title, extent and commencement.

(1) This Act may be cited as the Population (Statistics) Act, 1960.

(2) This Act shall not extend to Northern Ireland.

(3) Section one of, and the Schedule to, this Act shall come into force on the first day of January, nineteen hundred and sixty-one, and sections two, three and four of this Act shall come into force on the first day of October, nineteen hundred and sixty.