Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the annual population survey, what estimates he has made of the number of people who reported their religion as (a) Sikh and (b) Judaism in each of the past five years.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon lady’s Parliamentary Question of 10th June is attached.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what data her Department holds on the number of people living in deprivation, by ethnic group.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Statistics on the number of individuals in material deprivation in the UK by ethnic group are published annually. The latest available data can be found on Stat-Xplore (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/) in the Households Below Average Income dataset. The latest statistics were published on 21 March 2025 and are for the financial period 2023/24.
We are committed to tackling poverty and we know that good work can significantly reduce the chances of people falling into poverty so this will be the foundation of our approach. Our Get Britain Working White Paper, backed by £240 million investment, will target and tackle economic inactivity and unemployment and join up employment, health and skills support to meet the needs of local communities.
Alongside this, we are reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to do, to make work pay and tackle poverty. We have begun this work with our new Fair Repayment Rate which will help around 1.2 million of the poorest households benefit by an average of £420 a year.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what funding the Government has allocated to help increase levels of reporting of hate crimes by the Sikh community in each of the last five years.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
All forms of racial and religious discrimination are completely unacceptable, including that directed at Sikhs. No one should ever be a victim of hatred because of their race or religion and the government continues to work with police and community partners to monitor and combat this.
Over the last 5 years, the government has provided funding to True Vision – the police hate crime programme and online reporting portal – to encourage communities to report hate crime and reinforce relationships between communities and policing. As a part of this, True Vision has been working with the Sikh Guard (established by the National Sikh Police Association) and Rakkha initiatives to encourage reporting from within Sikh communities.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what data her Department holds on the number of Sikh people living in deprivation.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
We do not hold or collect data specifically on people from religious communities living in deprivation. The Indices of deprivation (2019) are publicly available and can be used to identify patterns of deprivation across England and Wales which could subsequently be cross-checked against Census data relating to the geographic locations of people who identified with a religion.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will publish all (a) research and (b) reports (i) commissioned and (ii) requested by her Department on (A) the Jewish community and (B) Jewish groups and organisations in each of the last three years.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
This Department has not commissioned any research or reports on the Sikh community, Sikh groups and organisations. The Department did commission some insight research during 2024 with members of the Jewish community in the aftermath of October 7th. We intend to publish the report from this work in due course.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will publish all (a) research and (b) reports (i) commissioned and (ii) requested by her Department on (A) the Sikh community and (B) Sikh groups and organisations in each of the last three years.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
This Department has not commissioned any research or reports on the Sikh community, Sikh groups and organisations. The Department did commission some insight research during 2024 with members of the Jewish community in the aftermath of October 7th. We intend to publish the report from this work in due course.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what data her Department collects on Sikh people in order to meet its public sector equality duty.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Public Sector Equality Duty requires public authorities to have due regard to certain equality considerations when exercising their functions, like making decisions. The Department applies the Cabinet Office's consultation principles when consulting as part of the policy making process.
Individual assessments are made by specific policy teams, and any data involved in the assessment process is not held centrally. Details of MHCLG’s public consultations can be found at: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government - Citizen Space.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what data her Department collects on Jewish people in order to meet its public sector equality duty.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Public Sector Equality Duty requires public authorities to have due regard to certain equality considerations when exercising their functions, like making decisions. The Department applies the Cabinet Office's consultation principles when consulting as part of the policy making process.
Individual assessments are made by specific policy teams, and any data involved in the assessment process is not held centrally. Details of MHCLG’s public consultations can be found at: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government - Citizen Space.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, how many people are employed in the Race Equality Unit; and how many of those people identify to each religious group.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Race Equality Unit currently employs 9 people. Due to the number of employees within the Race Equality Unit being below 10 we are unable to publish the ethnic group information as it would enable individuals to be identified.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, how many people are employed in the Race Equality Unit; and if she will publish the number of employees by ethnic group.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Race Equality Unit currently employs 9 people. Due to the number of employees within the Race Equality Unit being below 10 we are unable to publish the ethnic group information as it would enable individuals to be identified.