Brexit: Hate Crimes

Lord Ouseley Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I will get to the point about pre-referendum, because in fact the numbers of hate crimes reported are now down to pre-referendum levels. The reasons behind some of the hate crime were many and varied. The Polish community, for probably the first time in its history in this country, experienced in Hammersmith an unprecedented attack, and the Polish centre in Hammersmith was one of the first centres to benefit from the community demonstration project funding. As I say, the reasons that motivate people to provoke hatred against other people are many and varied, and it is generally based on certain characteristics of those people and those communities, and it has gone down to pre-referendum levels since then.

[Lord Ouseley (CB)]

My Lords, on 24 June we were all shocked by the level of responses of hate demonstrated by the recorded and reported incidents. I declare an interest in my work as chair of Kick It Out, where we monitor—and have done for the last 23 years—hate incidents that are at the lower level of everyday abuse. There is nothing new about the level of hatred that exists within our society. We have to tackle the issue of prejudice, which we are not doing sufficiently. To blame Brexit as a cause of what we saw on 24 June and since is delusional. Quite frankly, in the context of racial abuse, you cannot blame the levels of homophobic abuse and abuse of disabled people that we are witnessing specifically on Brexit. How are we taking action to effectively tackle prejudice, which is what feeds bigotry and hatred?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord raises a very important point, which is that it was not Brexit per se that was the cause of this hatred but Brexit was used as an occasion to promote prejudice and hatred. The Government have done many things since 2010 to try to tackle this. I mentioned the hate crime action plan that the Home Secretary produced upon becoming Home Secretary. We have made changes to legislation that offer further protection for transgender and disabled people, and those have led to the first convictions for the offence of stirring up hatred on grounds of sexual orientation. We have also improved the police recording of hate crime. Forces now capture data on all five of the monitored hate crime strands. We have also recently launched a funding scheme to help protect places of worship from hate crime and to tackle hate crime at a local level.

Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Ouseley Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - part one): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I do not think any noble Lord wishes to see Tasers used in hospital settings except under the most extreme circumstances. However, I am very persuaded by what I have heard from other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Dear. I would like to put the position slightly from the point of view of the patient. When I was a young man, I had quite a lot of experience of psychiatric wards—not, I hasten to add, as an inmate—and they can be terrifying places of extreme violence.

This amendment would mean that police officers could not use a Taser. I can foresee circumstances where somebody gets hold of a kitchen knife, for example, and is in a volatile state—the kind of volatile state that people who have not seen this kind of mania find hard to imagine. It is truly terrifying. We have to give some credit to people who are managing the situation. Given the information we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I would like to think that the police are acting responsibly, so we have to assume that somebody assesses the situation and decrees that it is so dangerous that the best way of not harming the mental patient any further is to use a Taser. I really cannot see how we could stop the police having that possibility at their disposal.

My concern is very much from the point of view of the patient, but there are occasions when a Taser just might be in the best interests of the patient.

[Lord Ouseley (CB)]

My Lords, as a signatory to this amendment, I certainly do not think that it is as crazy as it seems. I certainly support the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. She has very eloquently put forward the reasons why the amendment should be supported. I never felt that the amendment would be accepted, for the very reasons that noble Lords have given in speaking against it—and I understand why they said what they said. It is almost out of desperation that an amendment like this appears. Noble Lords have already mentioned the issue that has led to it: the desperation among people working with black and minority communities in such situations. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, mentioned the Care Quality Commission overseeing the way in which the police are involved in such settings and the way in which the Taser has become not just a weapon to stun—which might be necessary in such dangerous situations—but a weapon that has led to fatalities. Those organisations such as Black Mental Health UK that have been raising these issues for the last few years are concerned that no one seems to be listening.

Mental health is in crisis, and you cannot see this amendment in isolation from the other amendments that have been put forward, many of them by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, today. That package of improvements, alongside the improvements that are set out in the Bill, would hopefully get us to a stage that might minimise the need for Tasers to be used in the desperate situations that occur and require intervention. With the number of call-outs that are being made to the police, out of the desperation of staff who cannot cope, the police service is almost becoming an auxiliary to the mental health services in some areas. Part of what has to happen is that we address the deficiencies that exist, including in the quality and number of staff. An amendment such as this brings attention to the problem and brings our concerns to the fore about how we care for desperate people who require health professionals and as far as possible provide them with the care, protection and safety that they need—staff as well as patients. If we had got that right, we would not have put down an amendment such as this, which is one of sheer desperation.

Other amendments are important to improve the service to get us to the point where we would not have to say this. If we had before us all the information that has been asked for by Members tonight, it would enable us to see exactly what the scale of the problem is—rather than it being sensationalised in a way that may not actually be the case—and would guide us towards a sensible situation. As a last resort and in an emergency, police officers called to and deployed in such situations may have to use a Taser. It should not, because of creep, become something that causes as much concern as it does, but the reality of the use of Tasers in everyday policing and of the discrimination that is inflicted on black and minority-ethnic communities means that this is a real concern which we must address.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, although I have sympathy for everything that has been said in this debate, I support those noble Lords who oppose Amendment 194. We need to consider the position of a police officer who has to deal with an exceptionally violent situation. If this amendment were agreed, the police officer would have to get much closer to someone who is extremely violent. We have technology that we can use and strict controls on how it is used, and we should not deny the police the ability to use Tasers in these circumstances.

Hate Crime

Lord Ouseley Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord raises an important point. We have seen even in recent history that, regrettably, there were some who used the referendum result to invoke and incite hatred against different communities. I myself visited the Polish centre in west London. Thankfully, these remain sporadic attacks. We have also seen a rise in attacks on particular communities; particular BME communities have been targeted. Recently I met religious faith leaders as well. We talked about reassurance and the importance of reporting religious hate crime, race hate crime or any kind of hate crime, and then following it up practically. This is an evolving area. It is unfortunate that there are many in society who suffer this from the few who seek to make an issue of race, religion or any other issue. We need to stamp it out and send a clear message in that respect.

[Lord Ouseley (CB)]

My Lords, it is easy enough to focus on the statistics that clearly show that race and other hate crimes have been on the increase over the past few years. What we are not focusing on is the increase in prejudice and the way we have been feeding it in recent years and even before that. If you analyse all the national newspaper coverage of political statements that are made almost every day, you will see what we have been feeding young people daily: a diet of xenophobic and anti-immigrant sentiments, which has created not only the responses we see on social media but what is happening on our streets. What are we doing to educate current and future generations so that we can create cohesive and peaceful communities? What encouragement will be given to politicians and leading influential figures in our society to stop using their cleverness to conceal the xenophobic and other nasty messages that are part of what they are saying?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord speaks from experience and I appreciate his expertise in this area. We have talked of education before, and it is important that that forms a central, core part of what we teach in our schools and colleges. At the same time, we need to recognise that co-operation between communities needs to be heightened. Finally—this applies not just to this subject—we still have to exert positive optimism about our country. We remain one of the most successful, multicultural, multifaith societies, in which people are proud of their identity, regardless of cultural, community or religious background. We must all stand up—politicians, the press, and anyone involved with this—to ensure that wherever we find xenophobic hate, we stamp it out.

Immigration

Lord Ouseley Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord is right about language. Of course, his Question was specifically about that speech. It is important to remember that that speech was preceded, at the Home Secretary’s invitation, by a very moving account from my noble friend Lady Helic about her journey from war-torn Bosnia to this country. The Home Secretary concluded her speech by paying tribute to the people who moved here down the years and generations and,

“played a massive part in making this country what it is ... We have a proud history of relieving the distressed and helping the vulnerable—whether … through our military, our diplomacy, our humanitarian work … Let Britain stand up for the displaced, the persecuted and the oppressed. For the people who need our help and protection the most”.

I think that the Home Secretary was absolutely right.

[Lord Ouseley (CB)]

My Lords, Queen Elizabeth I, knowing that there were 10,000 black people in London, said there were too many “blackamoors” in Britain and that they should be removed from these shores. In the following centuries and over the past 50 years, there has been an obsession with immigration and numbers. Successive Governments have brought in Immigration Bills and have failed to deal with the matter of curbing immigration, particularly non-white immigration. The situation at present is that hate crime has increased 18% over the past year. That is also the responsibility of the Home Office. It is now at 53,000 reported crimes, but the British Crime Survey suggests that it is underreported and that some 800 hate crimes occur each day, the majority of them race inspired. Would the Minister not consider that political leadership in this country should focus on what contributes to the prejudice that leads to increased hate crimes and take a much more responsible leadership role in helping to create cohesion?

[Lord Bates]

I certainly personalise this by paying tribute to the noble Lord for his work down the years in improving race relations in this country. But he will recognise as well that, often, uncontrolled immigration can actually be the cause of a tension in racial harmony in this country. That is why we need to make absolutely sure that we have a robust and fair immigration system, not only for the people who need our help from overseas but also for the ethnic communities that play such a vital and important role in this country already.

Minority Ethnic and Religious Communities: Cultural and Economic Contribution

Lord Ouseley Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ouseley]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, on his excellent contribution today, first in managing to secure the opportunity for us to debate this very important subject and on his very inspirational speech. He is an illustrious role model for all of us and makes an enormous contribution, as indeed do all Members who have spoken today, particularly those who have been successful within the minority-ethnic and religious communities in this country, in providing inspiration for others, as he rightly said in his introduction, to follow. I am most grateful to all that he does for us in this House as well as in the wider society here and for businesses in India.

It is important, having acknowledged all the achievements that minorities have made in this country and contribute to Britain, that we also recognise some of the pain that goes with that. Minority-ethnic communities have made a substantial contribution, as we have heard to a substantial extent already today. London is the most culturally diverse city in the world. As someone who has travelled to many other cities from time to time, I marvel at what we have and enjoy, notwithstanding the fact that many who live in this great city are suffering disadvantage and deprivation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, very excitingly told us about all the contributions that African-Caribbean people have brought to this country. It is quite important, as we listen to the history in the various contributions, to recognise the value of that particular contribution. However, there was a reference to the glass ceiling being broken. For those who have been successful, it has been; but for a lot of other people it still remains. We hear daily from many people from minority backgrounds who are highly qualified and also highly professionalised about their failure to make the breakthrough and get access to those opportunities that we know are available. In the Metropolitan Police Service, many black and ethnic minority officers came very close to getting to the top—but where are they now? That is just one simple example.

We talk about “our” country, as noble Lords have—quite rightly—today, but there are many minority-ethnic communities in this country where people do not feel they belong. We have a very important role to help people feel that they do belong. If Britishness encapsulates a variety of ethnicities, religions, cultures and heritages, then we owe it to those who feel disaffected to help them feel they belong to the notion of being British and being part of Britain, make their contribution, and go on to be who they think they are and what they want to become.

The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, mentioned that we need to have an open mind. We are able to do so in a place such as your Lordships’ House but we have to work harder to open the minds of many more people so that we can bring those who feel disaffected into the fold to see the value and the benefits of being part of this great society.