Response to interpellation 2024/25:536 on census and other measures within the population register
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
1 M argues that the census is being carried out to stop welfare crime and choke the criminal economy 1. M argues that the government has strengthened population registration controls, increased resources to Skatteverket, and introduced legislation for better data analysis 1 2. M argues that the census today is about data analysis and information sharing 3 and that it is a census because a comprehensive picture is being obtained of who is in the country 4. M emphasizes that the authorities are cooperating in a new way to strengthen identity checks 4. 5 S argues that the Riksrevisionen has discovered deficiencies in the authorities' cooperation and identity checks 5. 6 S argues that the government has not carried out the large-scale census that was promised 6. 7 S argues that the current work is an extension of the population registration 7. 7 S wants to increase the controls of persons in Sweden, emphasize effective authority cooperation, and a central function for ID issues 7. 7 S argues that the government should let the extra investment in the population registration continue 7.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Mr. Speaker! Kalle Olsson has asked me when the census will be carried out and what measures I intend to take to resolve the problems in the work of establishing the identities of persons arriving in Sweden.
The census is ongoing and is yielding results. It is about finding out which persons are in Sweden and knowing who lives where. The census is important for several reasons – partly to stop welfare crime and fraud, and partly to choke the criminal economy.
In order to know who is present and active in Sweden, the Swedish Tax Agency, on behalf of the government, has produced the first-ever situational picture of the population. The Swedish Tax Agency presented the situational picture in June last year, and it gave us the best picture we have ever had of who is present in Sweden. Now, the Swedish Tax Agency has been commissioned to produce an updated situational picture annually to continue improving our oversight of who is present in Sweden.
To know who lives where, the government has significantly strengthened the Swedish Tax Agency's population registration controls. The population registration activities have grown by 120 employees, and many more residency controls and inspection visits are carried out today compared to before. The increased controls have, among other things, led to that approximately 20,000 people who emigrated without reporting it themselves were deregistered during the past year.
As the interpellor points out, it is also important in the population registration work to improve the authorities' identity checks. Currently, the government is making several interventions to put a stop to hijacked, exploited, and false identities. For example, the government has given several assignments to a total of ten authorities to strengthen identity checks. There are also proposals and ongoing investigations regarding increasing the use of biometric data further at our authorities.
Kalle Olsson (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Minister for Finance, for the answer!
We live in restless times; I believe we all agree on that. We see an elevated level of terror threat, we have wars in our vicinity, and we have a Russia that conducts illegal intelligence activities against Sweden here in our country. It is terror threats, intelligence threats, and threats from criminal groups. On top of this, we have extensive problems with welfare crime, i.e., that individuals in different ways, for example by hijacking others' identities, acquire benefits that they are not entitled to.
Rarely has the need, Mr. Speaker, for our authorities to have a handle on who is coming to our country been greater. For a government that has made internal and external security its most prioritized area, the question of who comes to our country is absolutely decisive. One can quite simply say that it is a prerequisite for internal and external security that one knows who is coming here.
But after having taken part of the National Audit Office's audit report, which I refer to in my interpellation, one wonders if the Minister truly feels confident that we have control over who comes to our country and stays here over time.
The Swedish National Audit Office has discovered a number of alarming deficiencies in the authorities' work to establish the identity of persons arriving in Sweden. Establishing identities is an extensive work involving several stages. We have several authorities involved, each with its own mandate, in addition to cases where the mandates overlap. We have varying, and in some respects perhaps somewhat deficient, competence. No authority seems particularly satisfied with how things are functioning either.
The Police and the Swedish Migration Agency state that they have insufficient access to identity documents from the Swedish Tax Agency. The Swedish Tax Agency, for its part, considers it difficult to access certain of the Swedish Migration Agency's data. The Swedish Migration Agency has a need for the police to do more to take custody of identity documents from asylum seekers. The Swedish Social Insurance Agency lacks information on the status of coordination numbers at the Swedish Tax Agency.
This is how it looks. It is not exactly a confidence-inspiring picture that is being painted, Mr. Speaker. For a government whose constituent parties already – before the election – before one had even become a government – promised radical measures against the shadow society and the deficiencies in the population registry, the picture drawn by the National Audit Office should be deeply concerning.
These are deficiencies that have consequences in reality. It is about third-country nationals who have been registered in Sweden as EEA citizens with identity documents that, according to the police, are obviously forged. In several cases, it has involved seriously criminal individuals. It is about the police testifying to major problems even in obtaining the right person at Skatteverket to engage in a dialogue regarding incorrect identities.
Ultimately, it is of course a matter for the government to ensure that the work in the agencies functions, and it is to an even greater extent the government's responsibility to act for effective agency cooperation. Cooperation is a key word in this context.
In his response, the Minister presents measures that are ongoing but does not answer my questions.
Has the government addressed the deficiencies that the Swedish National Audit Office points out both within and between the authorities regarding cooperation to establish identities? Can we all feel secure that a police officer who needs to get in contact with the right person at Skatteverket to verify a false identity can also do so?
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Kalle Olsson, for a most important question, to say the least!
There have been many years of failure to do what should have been done. We have seen crime creep deep into many different operations. Unfortunately, this has led to major problems for completely innocent people and to enormous suffering for people who have lost their children in shootings and so on.
The question of where people are located and who is in Sweden is one of the important prioritized issues that I attend to with the authorities for which I have responsibility. To crush organized crime, we simply must choke the criminal economy. It turns over somewhere between 100 and 150 billion every year; it is, therefore, enormously large. If we do not get to this, we will also not be able to turn the development completely and fully. This is therefore one of the government's prioritized tasks.
What have we done so far during these two and a half years? As the interpellor points out, the authorities are doing a fantastic job individually and in cooperation. They have highlighted various tools that they need to manage their work and do it better.
The government has responded rapidly both with resources, that is to say money, and with legislation. Skatteverket has received increased resources of over half a billion kronor during this mandate period to strengthen precisely the population registration. They have also received better tools that allow them to use data analysis and sampling to find errors in the population registration. We have thus received legislation that helps them do their job better.
Furthermore, we have taken the first step towards enabling authorities to share information. The secrecy between authorities has been so absurd that one actually has not always been able to convict those who cheat, defraud, and commit gross criminal acts.
Skatteverket has also been tasked with reporting back on how the agency continues to work on strengthening the population registration. Furthermore, Skatteverket has been tasked with producing an annual national situation report, which I also mentioned in my initial response. It is important work that is ongoing at all times, and I mean that it should be strengthened and improved during the coming years.
The fact is that Sweden has probably never had such a good overview of the population as it does today. Does that mean I am satisfied and that it is finished? Absolutely not – what happens when the government really tackles these problems is that one discovers different important parts and also different obstacles step by step. For example, an investigation is currently underway on strengthening biometrics; it is about being able to store biometric data longer and share it with other authorities. This is an incredibly important part when it comes to addressing, for example, the shadow society but also the criminal environments.
All this together means that we can, step by step, choke the criminal economy. The work is definitely not finished, but we have come a long way in two and a half years. We intend to continue this work until we have choked the criminal economy and completely and fully won over the serious crime.
Kalle Olsson (S)
Mr. Speaker! It does not actually need to be pointed out how important it is that we have a functioning cooperation between authorities in this area, precisely because so many agencies are involved. That is why I am asking these questions. We can push through all possible good legislation in this chamber, but we will have no great joy in it if two officials cannot get in contact with each other and coordinate important tasks, which is fundamental in this work.
I think it is extra troublesome that the shortcomings I have referred to are being uncovered under a Moderate-led government governed by SD – two parties that, in opposition, engaged in hard-line polemics against us Social Democrats and directed heavy criticism toward the shadow society and the shortcomings in the population registration.
I have not forgotten the 2022 election campaign, even if it may feel distant today. I have not forgotten the high tone from Elisabeth Svantesson, Jimmie Åkesson, and Ulf Kristersson regarding these issues. I have also not forgotten the crackdowns that were promised back then. The main point was a, as it was said, new national census. That it was to be a new census was a reference back to the large census of 1990. Now, a new one of those was supposed to come.
Then the election was won. In the Tidö Agreement, the word census is mentioned five times. There was talk outright about a large-scale census, a census so large that one first has to undertake a considerable amount of preparations just to be able to carry it out.
When I now pose the question in the interpellation regarding this census, the Minister for Finance answers that it is ongoing. "Oh," many Swedes probably think, "but the Swedish Tax Agency hasn't contacted me. I haven't received any forms or emails."
The fact is that last year, the Swedish Tax Agency conducted 3,744 inspection visits. Whether that is a lot or a little, I will leave unsaid, but it is no census we are talking about.
Why is this then important, Mr. Speaker? As the opposition, one has a special responsibility to scrutinize how the government conducts itself and whether the government does what it has promised the voters it would do. In these times characterized by populism and half-truths, this part of the accountability becomes extra important. There must be some form of reasonable connection between what is said and what is subsequently done. I cannot stand here in the Riksdag's speaker's chair and claim that I am standing on my hands when everyone sees that I am standing on my feet.
That a census should be underway, perhaps even a large-scale census, which was the promise, is not in accordance with reality. It may be perceived as a bit rigid, Mr. Speaker, but I think that if one has promised to carry out a major reform, gone to the election on this promise and alarmed and made a spectacle of it through an entire election campaign, then one must either see to it that this census is carried out or tell the Swedish people that one has changed one's mind, that one has realized that this perhaps was not the best method or a well-thought-out idea. It sounded powerful at the time, but upon closer examination, it did not hold up.
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Mr. Speaker! I must say that I am a bit surprised that members who I believe are significantly younger than I do not seem to see that a lot has happened in the world since 1990 when Sweden last had a census – or for that matter since the birth of Jesus when one had to register for taxes and get there with a donkey or whatever it was one did.
It is, therefore, a completely different world we live in today. When a census is conducted today, which is currently underway, it is about using all the tools available to get as good a picture as possible of who is in the country and where these people live. Furthermore, which the interpellator is surely also aware of, there are and have been people who live in other countries far from here and still receive benefits from the Swedish system. When, for example, an Iraqi former defense minister received benefits from the Swedish social security system, I believe many were outraged.
These are examples that show that for many, many years we have not had control over who is here and where people live.
A census, therefore, is not about knocking on every door in Sweden. That would be one of the absolute worst things in terms of efficiency tasks that we could give to an agency. As I mentioned earlier, it is therefore about different possibilities for data analysis and better possibilities to share information. Even the control visits have increased significantly – I have personally participated in such visits – as a way to see how many people live here and if they are living in the right place.
Step by step, we are now getting an even better picture. Despite the fact that we have never had a better picture than we have had since last summer, we will get an even better picture. The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that 20,000 people – as a small or medium-sized city in Sweden – have been removed from the population register without them having reported it themselves, that is to say, they are not here. This too is a result from the census.
Either one does not want to understand, or there is a certain confusion of concepts regarding what a census is, but for me it is very simple: It is about us knowing how many people there are in the country, where they live, and if they live in the right place. If one is not in Sweden but states that one is, one should be struck off. Just in this, Mr. Speaker, we have in a short time taken long and many steps forward.
Kalle Olsson (S)
Mr. Speaker! I would first like to repeat what Gunnar Andersson, professor of demography, has said: It is not a census, even if it is called that. Perhaps one could say that it is an expansion of the system of population registration and an attempt to find persons who are not included in the registered population through random checks here and there.
Spot checks here and there is exactly what we see, Mr. Speaker. It is what one can call 3,744 inspection visits – spot checks.
What is happening today can be described more as a continuation of the work that the previous government carried out and which this government is now taking forward. I am the first to say that many of the measures that the government is now implementing are welcome and important. But to give the impression that a major census is taking place in Sweden now – it is not. If one compares with the rhetoric during the election campaign, one might wonder if anything has happened at all. It is merely a continuation of the policy that was already being conducted.
From the Social Democrats' side, we are completely clear that more must be done to increase the controls of those who come to Sweden and those who stay here over time. These are, in fact, important issues. We do not intend to follow Elisabeth Svantesson's example from when she and the Moderaterna were in opposition and put out empty promises without contact with reality.
The most important thing now is effective agency cooperation and that a central, agency-wide function with high competence regarding ID issues is established. It is also essential that the government announces that the time-limited extra investment in the population register, which has been allocated to Skatteverket, may continue. That, Mr. Speaker, is where the focus should lie – not on giving the appearance that measures are being implemented when they are not.
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Mr. Speaker! I am actually surprised. I am surprised because Kalle Olsson has decided that since he does not think the definition of a census matches the picture he – and obviously several others – have of what is happening, it is not a census. But I say that what is happening, regardless of what we call it, is a census, because it is about precisely this.
I am proud of our authorities and the work they do together. They work at an incredibly high pace and really hard to get an even better picture of the situation, and they have also achieved this in a fairly short time thanks to a clear mandate from the government. That means that today we have a much better overview of who is in the country and where they live. But we are not finished.
For many years, different governments, including the one I myself sit in, have pursued a migration policy that has resulted in very many people being here. They hide until they can apply again, for example. It can also be about Swedes who move to Spain and never come back but still do not deregister. There are many different ways for people to cheat and deceive the system.
What we are doing now, with all the parts I have mentioned, is therefore to obtain a unified picture. It is a census. If Kalle Olsson does not agree with the description, I hope that he can agree that the authorities can nevertheless cooperate in a completely new way right now. We are strengthening the authorities' identity checks in several ways. Skatteverket, Tullverket, and Kronofogdemyndigheten have together, and together with me, set a higher ambition and target image to consolidate efforts against the entire criminal economy, where population registration and census are an important part.
We have ensured that customs officers working in outer service can now carry weapons. This has, therefore, occurred under this government. The list can be long. But one thing should be known, Mr. Speaker; we have decided to choke the criminal economy through legislation, resources, and authorities working together.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.