Law change needed to stop Jews and Sikhs becoming ‘invisible’, says MP

A law change is needed to prevent British Jews and Sikhs “invisible” to policymakers, an MP has proposed.

Labour’s Preet Kaur Gill has called for a Bill to address a “fundamental absurdity in the fight against discrimination and inequality” by requiring ethnicity data on Sikhs and Jews to be collected.

She later added on X:”Despite being legally recognised as ethnic groups for over 40 years, public bodies don’t collect data on Jewish and Sikh people to monitor inequalities and deliver public services.It makes our communities invisible to policymakers.Today I am introducing a Bill to change that.”

The MP for Birmingham Edgbaston wants public bodies which collect data about ethnicity for the purpose of delivering public services to include specific “Sikh” and “Jewish” categories as options for a person’s ethnic group.

Gill said religious data is collected by public bodies but said this is “poor, patchy and incomplete” and is “never used” to make decisions on delivering services.

During her speech in the Commons the MP said manny experts in public health “now recognise that we were too slow to recognise that some ethnic groups were dying at a far higher rate than others. ”

She added:”The Office of National Statistics (ONS) belatedly started analysing Covid related deaths data by religious group, where data was available – a short-term exercise that has since been discontinued.

“It found that Sikhs died disproportionately from Covid even after adjusting for region, population density, area deprivation, household composition, socio-economic status, and a range of other economic indicators.

“Not only this, but it showed that Sikhs were affected at a very different rate to other predominantly South Asian groups – meaning that analysis using the existing ethnic minority categories would fail to capture any of these inequalities.

“The Board of Deputies has also recognised these arguments. British Jews died at almost twice the rate of the rest of the population.

“With the higher prevalence of certain genetic conditions among Jewish people, for example breast cancer in Ashkenazi Jewish women, collecting better data will help public services profile and respond to the community better. ”

Moving her Public Body Ethnicity Data (Inclusion of Jewish and Sikh Categories) Bill,the MP alos told the Commons: “Jews and Sikhs are in the unique position of being considered both ethnic and religious groups under the Equality Act 2010.

“Sikhs and Jews have been legally recognised as ethnic groups for over 40 years since the Mandla v Dowell Lee case in 1983.

“The Bill would address a fundamental absurdity in the fight against discrimination and inequality that we do not collect ethnicity data on Sikhs and Jews since laws on racial discrimination were first introduced nearly 60 years ago.

“The Women and Equalities Select Committee was told in February 2018 that the Government’s race disparity audit had identified around 340 data sets across government but found no data on Sikhs.

“The only data collected on Sikhs and Jews in most recent years is religious data. However, the quality of data collected by public bodies on religion compared to ethnicity is poor, patchy and incomplete.

“Religion data is never used by public bodies to make decisions for the purposes of delivering public services – it makes both Jews and Sikhs invisible to policymakers, therefore ignoring the inequality and discrimination both groups face.

“That is why specific Jewish and Sikh ethnic categories are needed and that is what this Bill will do.

“This is a campaign to end the discrimination both communities face.”

Gill asked for her Bill to be given a second reading on March 7 next year. But it faces a battle to become law due to a lack of parliamentary time to consider private members’ bills.

Despite being legally recognised as ethnic groups for over 40 years, public bodies don’t collect data on Jewish and Sikh people to monitor inequalities and deliver public services.It makes our communities invisible to policymakers.Today I am introducing a Bill to change that.