Sikh group threatens to take Scottish ministers to court

A SIKH group has threatened to take Scottish ministers to court if they are counted as a religion rather than an ethnic minority on the census.

The Sikh Federation said its community had been recognised as an ethnic group in the UK since 1983 and expressed its “disbelief” that it would not be identified as such on the census.

Pagans will be an accepted religion for the first time but there is no room for Episcopalians, whose worshippers outnumber Sikhs, Jews and pagans combined in Scotland.

A spokesman for the federation said: “Public bodies in Scotland will only start to systematically collect information on Sikhs if there is a specific Sikh ethnic tick box [which is] used by decision-makers in allocating resources and making decisions on the provision of public services.”

The group has begun legal proceedings against the UK Cabinet Office over similar provisions in the census of England and Wales, and confirmed it would take the Scottish government to the Court of Session, Scotland’s highest civil court, if the census were not amended.

Fiona Hyslop, the culture secretary, told Holyrood’s culture committee: “There are different views within the Sikh community. We know that some Sikh respondents found inclusion under an ethnic group inappropriate or confusing... so it will appear under the religion section but it will be possible to write in Sikh under the ethnic section as well.”