§ Mr. LloydTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the status of Sikhs within the Statutory Code of Practice on the Duty to Promote Race Equality. [57975]
§ Angela Eagle[holding answer 23 May 2002]Sikhs have the same status as all other ethnic and racial groups within the draft Statutory Code of Practice on the Duty to Promote Race Equality currently before Parliament.
Some Sikh organisations have argued that Sikhs should be monitored as a separate ethnic group rather than subsumed in one of the generic monitoring categories used in the 2001 Census. The fact that case law has established Sikhs as an ethnic group for the purposes of the Race Relations Act does not, of itself, justify different treatment from the many other ethnic and racial groups in the United Kingdom.
The draft statutory Code of Practice encourages authorities to use the same ethnic classification system as used in the 2001 Census, or categories that match them very closely. However, the draft statutory Code also recognises that authorities may choose to collect more detailed information to reflect local circumstances. Public 713W authorities with significant Sikh populations in their area may opt to do this. Helpfully, demographic information about British Sikhs will be available for the first time from the results of the religious identity question in the 2001 Census due to be published next February.