Member

I am pleased that the Government are taking forward important changes to ethnicity data collection within the deaths registration process, but as it stands, the process would pretty much replicate the in-built bias against Jews and Sikhs who do not have their own specific categories in ONS-designed ethnicity questionnaires. They simply rely on existing recorded information for ethnicity. My new clauses would change that, making it mandatory for public bodies to collect ethnicity data for Jews and Sikhs. After all, it is not religious differences that make Ashkenazi women more susceptible to breast cancer. The distinction between recording ethnicity versus religion is the difference between Jewish and Sikh communities being counted and not. Good quality data saves lives. That is why I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on the issue in the House last year, and my campaign had wide support from both the Jewish and Sikh communities.