British Sikh Community

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Gareth Johnson

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Johnson]

Forgive me, but I will not concentrate on the issue of gay marriage today. We have had that debate in the main Chamber. I certainly pay tribute, however, to the existence of common political ground between various religions; it is heartening to see those two religions working together for a common interest.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I will not go down the avenue of gay marriages either. For many years, certainly in Coventry, I have dealt with the Sikh community, as leader of Coventry city council and as an MP. To return to the point made earlier by the hon. Gentleman, one of the things that strikes people when they go to a temple, if they do not know much about the Sikh community, is the way that they share food with the rest of the community—that is open to the community. People should bear it in mind that one of the major contributions of the Sikh community, certainly in Coventry and probably nationally, is that it gets involved with other faiths—in the Council of Churches, for example. More importantly, it makes a major contribution to education, medical science, medical ethics and so forth. The Sikhs punch above their weight, frankly. We should acknowledge that.

[Gareth Johnson]

That is an excellent point. My local Sikh temple is very much a community hub. I worked with a Sikh by the name of Jatinder Sokhal in a firm of solicitors before being elected to this place; he said that, when he was studying at university and could not even afford to feed himself, he went down to his local Sikh temple, was welcomed and fed. The benevolence, therefore, in many Sikh temples is something that we should remark upon.