Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has considered (a) recognising and (b) establishing a definition of anti-Sikh hate.

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. We welcome the Sikh Guard initiative, a third-party reporting service specifically for the Sikh Community.

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.