Covid-19: BAME Communities

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I encourage anybody here or watching at home who missed the opening speech by the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) to catch up on it, because that would be very worthwhile. It was a really interesting and informative speech.

I have been self-certifying. The fact that I am here is an indication of how strongly I feel about this subject matter. I speak as the SNP’s women and equalities spokes- person in Westminster, as the MP for Glasgow North East—one of the most ethnically diverse constituencies in Scotland—and as an ally. I have no illusion: I will not and should not be leading a campaign against racism; I should be supporting those who experience racism. That is not me, and it is never going to be me.

This report has brought into sharp focus the institutional racism that exists on these islands, so race and racism are what I want to look at. I will focus on three main things. First, I will say something about Scotland, the SNP and race. Secondly, I want to look back in time and cover a bit of history. The third and final thing I will talk about is what I am going to do about it, how I am going to be an ally and how I am going to support BAME leaders in the fight against racism.

Starting with Scotland and the SNP, here are the good bits. The SNP Government and Parliament clearly stood last week in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The SNP Government have put equality and human rights at the heart of their response to coronavirus, and Nicola Sturgeon today announced further analysis of the impact on people from BAME communities in Scotland. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) is not in her place, but she mentioned the National Records of Scotland figures. So far, the Scottish Government have looked at figures for those who are very sick with covid-19 and in hospital, and an expansion of that was announced today.

The SNP provided the first Muslim Member of the Scottish Parliament, the late, great Bashir Ahmad; I cannot look at my colleagues here, because we will all get emotional. Political leaders in Scotland have long spoken positively and often about migrant communities in Scotland, and that has an impact on the population. They did it when it was not popular to do it, but it does rub off on the population, and this Government might want to take note of that.

I turn now to the not-so-good bits. As a party, we have not built on Bashir Ahmad’s legacy. We have one BAME Member of the Scottish Parliament: Humza Yousaf. He is the Justice Secretary, and he is doing a brilliant job. But even he, speaking in the Black Lives Matter debate in the Scottish Parliament last week, checked his own privilege and noted that there are no BAME women in the Scottish Parliament. That is odd, because I know so many who would do a fantastic job in that Parliament. He did that in a very honest speech, in which he also listed all the areas of public life where white people are at the top—I am struggling to think of one where they were not—and I was absolutely horrified.

Humza Yousaf also recently ordered a public inquiry into the death of Sheku Bayoh, whose family have waited five years to know how he died in police custody, and he instructed the inquiry to look at whether race played a part. Sheku’s family should not have had to wait five years for that inquiry to be announced, so we do have things that we have to face up to in Scotland.

Looking to the future, I feel a little more positive than I once did. A week ago last Monday, the SNP’s black, Asian and minority ethnic convenor organised a Zoom meeting. At two days’ notice, 127 BAME people signed up for it, 22 SNP MPs—we only invited SNP MPs, so do not worry; we are not competing—12 SNP MSPs and 12 councillors. That was at two days’ notice, and our job was to listen. We were not allowed to speak other than to say our names. Our job was to listen to everybody and hear what they had to say, and we will be building on that—or they will be building on that, and we will be supporting.

I wish to look a little at the history, which I talked about. There are a number of petitions and campaigns about teaching black history in schools. I have long supported that—in fact, I have spoken about it in this place—and I will explain why. I am confident that this is one very significant way to eradicate racism. Children are not born racist, and when they first become aware of it they find it very difficult to understand. It is not their instinct to be racist, and then they are taught it. If they go through nursery and school with positive role models from all ethnicities, and if their school books reflect those positive role models, they are far less likely to be able to be taught to be racist.

I have spoken to teachers who care deeply about this matter who told me that schools already teach about racism, as they should, but it others people and it portrays those classmates as victims. That is not to say that people are not victims of racism, but there is so much more that we could be doing to stop it in the first place. One of those things is looking at a positive role models in history and demonstrating that the ethnicity of the people who built these islands and this world is many and varied. One of them, whom I talk about a lot and who now has a statue across the road, is Mary Seacole.

The third and final thing that I want to cover— Oh, I have more time than I thought, so actually I will talk about positive images.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Lady has about a minute left.

[Anne McLaughlin]

A minute? I was told I had seven minutes. Right, I had better come on to: what am I going to do about it?

First, I have applied to have my constituency office registered and trained as a third-party hate crime reporting centre. I will very briefly say that the first of my colleagues to come back to me and say, “I want to do that too,” was the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Amy Callaghan). I think all Members will join me in wishing her well as she recovers from what happened last week.

Secondly, I have set up the all-party parliamentary group on unconscious bias. Our inaugural meeting will be on 29 June. Members will decide what happens, but my intention is to have a number of distinct investigations. They could be into a number of things, but the first must be into race. I want the group to take evidence from people not necessarily about overt racism but about undercover racism, where even the person doing it does not know that they are doing it.

It is not just about hearing evidence. I want to make recommendations on what we can do to enable people to recognise their own thinking and to undo it—who should be doing that, and how they should be doing it. I want a UK-wide campaign of awareness, but I should not get carried away and pre-empt the findings. I thank the hon. Member for Brent Central for agreeing to be part of that APPG.

The third thing that I will do is keep listening, and listening more to people who experience racism, which, as I said, is not me. I will end on three very brief messages for the Minister and the Government. The first is that Black Lives Matter is not just about saving those lives, but the lives that people are leading when they are here. Secondly, please stop using the Lammy review as a cover. I am sick of hearing the Government answer every question about what they are doing with: “We’ve got the Lammy review.” They should act upon it, and speak about it only when they have actually done something about it. Finally, we can breathe and until we cannot we should fight racism and call it out wherever we see it, and whoever it is from—and that includes Prime Ministers.