I am proud that Wolverhampton has a strong and thriving Sikh community. In fact, according to the latest census Wolverhampton has the second largest concentration of Sikhs in England and Wales. Just over 9% of Wolverhampton’s population are of Sikh faith, that is 22,689 people.I wanted to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the contribution of the Sikh community to the City – economically, socially, culturally. So many Sikh families have achieved economic and educational successes from humble beginnings. As Professor Carl Chin commented in an excellent, recent Express and Star article: “today many of the sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters of those early Indian immigrants are prosperous in business or else have moved into the professions becoming solicitors, accountants, doctors, and chemists amongst others. They are valued and valuable citizens.”

This success is particularly impressive given the discrimination many Sikhs faced when they first arrived in the City in 1960s and especially given the backdrop of Enoch Powell’s infamous speech. Thankfully Powell’s speech now seems like a distant memory. His message has been completely discredited.

One local story encapsulates the hard-won progress which has been made since those dark days. When the father-in-law of a serving Labour councillor was the first Sikh to buy a house in a certain area of Wolverhampton in the 1960s in Wolverhampton, his neighbours signed a petition calling for his family to leave. I am pleased to say that he stayed and now his daughter lives there with her husband several decades later and no one bats an eyelid.

Sikh community groups have worked hard throughout the last four decades to foster mutual understanding, tolerance and strong community relations. I want to pay tribute to their work and also to the MPs and Councillors who have worked to promote mutual understand and community relations, particularly my predecessor Ken Purchase.

The first Sikh gurdwara was built in my constituency, on the Cannock Road, in 1966. There is also a gurdwara in Wednesfield in Well Lane. Both gurdwaras are incredibly welcoming and central to the wider community. The temples are more than just religious buildings, they are community and cultural centres. They are venues for weddings and community events, provide language lessons, and one even has a gym.

Every year, the Wolverhampton Council of Sikh Gurdwaras organises an event to celebrate Vaisakhi in West Park. It is a real community event – open to all – with speeches, stalls and langar (free food) as is the procession from the Well lane gurdwara in my constituency to Willenhall and all the other community events.

Sikhs in Wolverhampton are obviously concerned about the wider Sikh community and I want to congratulate the Kesri Lehar campaign and petition calling for an abolition of the death penalty in India.  As a Shadow Foreign Office Minister, parliamentary protocol prevented me from speaking in a recent debate in Parliament on this issue, but I want to take the opportunity provided by this debate to convey to the Minister the strength of feeling amongst the Sikh community in my constituency. I wholeheartedly support their call for the abolition of the death penalty in India.

I also want to congratulate the Sikh community and the Sikh Federation, MPs and the Government for finding a solution to the problem with airport searches. The swab and wand technology (which can search turbans without them being removed) both meets the requirements of security and respects the importance of the turban to Sikhs as one of their five articles of faith.

Finally whilst we celebrate the unique contribution and strong cultural identity of the Sikh community we should also recognise that we have a lot in common. Sikhs in my constituency have the same concerns as my other constituents, they care passionately about public services, they want the Government to get the economy back on track and they are concerned about the rising cost of living.

It is a privilege to pay tribute to the contribution of the Sikh community to Wolverhampton and to the country more widely.

You can read the full debate here.

March 2013