Public Body Data Collection: Sikh and Jewish Ethnicity

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Sikh and Jewish ethnicity data collection by public bodies.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to her role. For more than 40 years, Sikhs and Jews have been recognised in law as both ethnic and religious groups. That is long-established; it was confirmed by the 1983 Mandla v. Dowell-Lee judgment and reaffirmed by the Equality Act 2010. Yet, in practice, our systems still fail to acknowledge what the law clearly states.

Nearly six decades after racial discrimination laws were introduced, public bodies still do not collect ethnicity data on Sikhs and Jews. This is not a technical oversight; it is a structural problem with the way public bodies and our Government collect ethnicity data—one that prevents us from understanding inequality, recognising discrimination and properly protecting communities the law says we must protect.

In December 2024, I introduced my ten-minute rule Bill, the Public Body Ethnicity Data (Inclusion of Jewish and Sikh Categories) Bill. The Bill provides that where a public body collects data about ethnicity for the purpose of delivering public services, it must include specific Sikh and Jewish categories as options for a person’s ethnic group. This is about how the United Kingdom delivers its public services; it is not a theological discussion, as the Office for National Statistics has told all public bodies that they can use only—this is really important—the current ethnicity data categories for service delivery.

Time and again, national reviews have shown that Sikhs and Jews are missing from the datasets that shape decisions about public services. In 2018, the Women and Equalities Committee heard that the Government’s race disparity audit had identified around 340 datasets across Government, yet not one included data on Sikhs. My own written parliamentary questions have revealed that Government Departments do not collect ethnicity data on Sikhs and Jews.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady on all that she does on behalf of the Sikh community. I am very happy that we have developed a friendship over the years through freedom of religious belief and that we are able to stand together for each other, and that is something that always encourages me.

Does the hon. Lady agree that although Sikh and Jewish people are legally recognised as ethnic groups under the Equality Act 2010, current public data collection often reduces them solely to a religion, which is wrong? Does she agree that Jewish and Sikh people, and other minority communities, face both subtle and overt forms of discrimination, and that it is therefore imperative that public bodies collect accurate ethnicity data? That would send a clear message that Sikh and Jewish people, and others, are valued, visible and protected in every part of this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.