Preet Kaur Gill, the first Sikh woman MP and newly elected MP for Birmingham Edgbaston has been chosen as a prestigious member of the Home Affairs Select Committee. She has also been elected as the Chair of the APPG for British Sikhs. The influential Home Affairs Select Committee consists of 11 MPs, from the three largest political parties and looks at the work of Home Office and its associated public bodies. The new Chair of the Committee is Yvette Cooper.
Veteran Indian-origin Labour MP Rt Hon Keith Vaz was the chair of the Select Committee for nine years. The committee chooses its own subjects of inquiry from issues the home office takes on. At the end of the inquiry, the Committee prouces a report on the findings and make recommendations to the Government. The Government is meant to respond to each of the report's recommendations within 2 months of the publication.
Gill reportedly said, "I find the subject matter in what they scrutinise really interesting and wide-ranging. I am particularly interested in child sex exploitation...There has been a big increase in hate crime in the UK often targeted at Sikhs who wear turbans and have beards. The government's hate crime action plan has been focused on the Abrahamic faith and has ignored Sikhs. I want to make sure the Government is doing enough to address this."
