Sikh heritage MPs voted against a national inquiry into ‘grooming gangs’, the NSO says this is morally wrong

At the beginning of the year the Conservative party submitted an amendment (attached to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill) for the purpose to set up a national inquiry into ‘grooming gangs’. It was voted down by 364 votes to 111 votes. Labour has a majority government, and many MPs voted along party lines, and this includes many of the Sikh heritage MPs within the Labour party. 

Indeed, the issue of group-based child sexual exploitation by men of predominantly Pakistani Muslim heritage is an issue that has not only impacted the white-working class (and some middle class) girls in places like Rotherham, Telford and Rochdale – but also Sikh and Hindu communities too. This has regrettably led to vigilante reprisals from a small section of the Sikh community, like in Leicester in 2013, and was a contributing factor that led to major civil unrest between Sikh and Muslim communities in places like Slough in the 1990s. The disorder culminated with the Chalvey (in Slough) riot in 1997, and Fiona Mactaggart – (former MP for Slough) said, ‘the town when I stood [for election] was a troubled place, rival gangs of Sikh and Muslim youth were trying to kill each other on our streets’.

Given the national scale of the problem with ‘grooming gangs’, which some estimate to have been operating in 50 towns and cities across the UK, plus the irrefutable fact that Sikh girls are also targeted by abusers, we believe it is morally wrong for Sikh heritage MPs to have voted against the proposal to set up a national inquiry. They have shown poor judgment, herd mentality and a lack of moral clarity, in what we can only view as a betrayal of victims and survivors. 

The following Sikh heritage MPs voted against the amendment which would have allowed a set-up of a national inquiry into ‘grooming gangs’:

• Jas Atwal MP (Ilford South)
• Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough)
• Kirith Entwistle (Bolton North East)
• Gurinder Singh Josan (Smethwick)
• Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West)
• Satvir Kaur (Southampton Test)
• Dr Jeevan Sandher (Loughborough)
• Sonia Kumar (Dudley)
• Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield)
• Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East)

No vote recorded:

• Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston)
• Baggy Shanker (Derby South)

As reported in the Times, we wrote to the Home Secretary to encourage her and Baroness Louise Casey to look at both race and religion as contributing factors motivating these horrific crimes. We copied the correspondence to Sikh heritage MPs. To date, we’ve had no response. Although we are of the understanding, that privately, at least one Sikh heritage MP has spoken up about the targeting of Sikh girls with Labour colleagues. If only they had the courage to air their views in public. 

From The Sikh Messenger, Spring/Summer 2025