Abena Oppong-Asare
Main Page: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)Department Debates - View all Abena Oppong-Asare's debates with the Department for Education
Black History Month
Abena Oppong-Asare Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Marsha De Cordova
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We must address the issue of representation in education, right the way from school through to colleges, universities and at professor level. Perhaps the Minister, in his response, can address the point on those disparities in the education system.
The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report, catalysed by the brutal murder of George Floyd and by the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, was an opportunity for this Government to tackle structural racism. Instead, they produced a divisive and now discredited report seeking to deny the extent of structural racism.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) for putting forward this debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for the important points she has raised. Does she agree that the murder of George Floyd resulted in an increasing number of organisations and businesses across the country having uncomfortable conversations with employees about how they could do things differently and on understanding the experiences of individuals? Does she also agree that the Government need to take that a step further and implement a race equality strategy, while also looking at diversifying the curriculum? The only way we can move forward is if we learn from our past to build a better future.
Marsha De Cordova
My hon. Friend must have read my speech, because those are exactly the points I was going to raise. She is spot on. In my former role as shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, Labour rightly rejected the report. Within days, it had been discredited by a long list of experts, including the British Medical Association, trade unions, and many human rights experts at the UN.