Race Disparity Audit

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Gadhia

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord is right to say that we in this country have made enormous progress. I was looking at the Equality and Human Rights Commission report Is Britain Fairer?, which says:

“The reader will find that Britain has become fairer in many areas. We should be proud of and celebrate these advances. If we do not recognise the positives, we run the risk of feeding an untrue and excessively negative narrative that suggests everywhere you look we are becoming more divided and less fair as a nation”.


I think there has been enormous change and improvement in social attitudes, underpinned by relevant race equality legislation. The noble Lord is right that there was a spike—I hope it was just a spike—after the referendum result, and that poses a challenge to all those government departments with responsibility for promoting good relationships. There is particular responsibility for the police on the law and order front. In publishing this document, we recognise that we have progress to make in a wide number of areas.

[Lord Gadhia (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I add my welcome for the publication of this report. Sunshine is often the best disinfectant, and bringing transparency to areas where more work needs to be done to tackle persistent inequality and prejudice is most welcome. I encourage the Government to develop a proactive agenda to tackle these issues. At the same time, there is some positive evidence in the report, particularly regarding the British Indian community, which comes top in a number of earnings and education indicators. For example, 35% of British Indians earn more than £1,000 a week, versus an average of 24% in that income bracket across the population; and 14% of British Indian children achieve three A grades or better at A-level. Does my noble friend agree that the British Indian community provides a role model for how a minority group can integrate successfully into British society and make a positive and outstanding contribution to this country?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I agree with my noble friend. One positive fact that emerged from this audit was that 85% of ethnic minority people believe that they are British and identify very strongly with their community. That is a very positive sign. My noble friend is right that in many of these indicators, the Indian community does well; but, by contrast, they reveal that the Bangladeshi community does not do nearly so well on many of the same indicators. We need to understand the reasons, address them and see whether we can bring those members of the ethnic minorities who do not achieve quite as well as the Indian community in the respect that my noble friend mentioned up to the same standard.