FOI reference: FOI-2025-2802
You asked
Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to request the following information.
Official statistics on the number of births in England and Wales contain information on the number of births by local authority, parity, and day of birth.
We would like to make two requests for data:
- 1. The annual number of births by local authority, split by parity.
- We would like this data from 2005 (or earliest possible date) until 2022 (or latest possible date).
- We would like the data split by local authority in England and Wales.
- We would like this to also be split by the following parity groups: 0 previous live births, 1 previous live birth, 2 previous live births and 3+ previous live births.
- Ideally we would like the data to be at district and unitary local authority level, though if that is not available, county and unitary is fine.
- 2. The monthly number of births in England and Wales split by parity.
- We would like this data from January 2005 (or earliest possible date) until December 2022 (or latest possible date).
- We would like the data for whole of England and Wales.
- We would like this to be split by the following parity groups: 0 previous live births, 1 previous live birth, 2 previous live births and 3+ previous live births.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We have produced data for the annual number of births for England and Wales split by number of previous live births within tables 4 and 7 of the Births in England and Wales: birth registrations. These tables are in a new format for 2023 data, but the data are available in table 5 of the Births by parents' characteristics for the years 2014 to 2022.
We have not produced the specific analysis you require. However, we may be able to create a custom output. Information on the annual number of births by local authority and parity, and the monthly number of births in England and Wales split by parity along with other special extracts and tabulations of births data for England and Wales are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate).
Such enquiries should be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.