Black History Month

Debate between Adam Afriyie and Anne McLaughlin

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin]

Spoken like a true engineer. His highest achievement, however, was that he played for the Scotland football team on three occasions, captaining the side in his first match. Most importantly, Scotland won each game. [Interruption.] The consensus and smiles may disappear in a moment, when I tell the House that the first of those matches was played at the Oval in Kennington, where he led his team to a 6-1 victory over England. In the next match, we beat Wales 5-1, and in his final international, we beat England again, but sadly, that time it was only 5-1. That is really why he is my hero.

However, I knew nothing about this man until about 10 years ago. There were efforts to get him recognised, and indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) once made a documentary about Andrew Watson, in conjunction with celebrated broadcaster and journalist—and my friend and constituent—Stuart Cosgrove, who is also an author. As an aside, his latest book is about Cassius Clay. Andrew Watson is now memorialised in the hall of fame at Scotland’s national stadium in Hampden, but why do special efforts and campaigns have to happen for people to be recognised? As the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) explained, it took 12 years to get the statue of Mary Seacole. Do you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that 80,000 people lined the banks of the Thames to celebrate Mary Seacole when she returned from the Crimean war? How on earth did we manage to whitewash her out of history until recently? Why did it take a campaign to recognise her?

Most people do not wish to be racist, I believe—most of it is simply down to not knowing or not understanding. Part of our job here is to help them, and I invite Members to join the all-party group on unconscious bias, which I co-chair with my friend the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), who gave a brilliant speech and tolerated the nonsense from Government Members extremely well. Our first investigation is on unconscious racial bias, which we will launch shortly—I will send an email about it.

Yes, progress has been made, but it is not enough. I will share a story with Members. My 17-year-old goddaughter Toniann texted me yesterday, saying, “I’m in class and I’m watching Uncle Graham on TV.” Toniann’s mum is white Scottish and her dad is black Jamaican. Uncle Graham is my partner, who was featured in a BBC documentary made by Stewart Kyasimire called “Black and Scottish”. It is on iPlayer, and I urge Members to watch it—it is absolutely brilliant. Here is a child of Scottish Jamaican descent seeing black role models featured in her education, and she was absolutely delighted. The icing on the cake was that she was related to one of them.

The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) noted the decision by Glasgow University to make reparation for the way in which it benefited from the Caribbean slave trade.

[Adam Afriyie]

The hon. Lady is making a fantastic speech. I am fascinated by the APPG on unconscious bias. Could her first inquiry be on the unconscious bias of the SNP against the English?

[Anne McLaughlin]

Maybe we will change the inquiry—I need to speak to the hon. Member for Brent North, but perhaps we will change it to the conscious bias of the SNP against the Tories. [Interruption.] Did I hear Conservatives saying, “Hear, hear”? Thank you.

Glasgow University is making reparations for the way in which it benefited from the slave trade. It was the aforementioned Uncle Graham, in his role as chair of Flag Up Scotland Jamaica, of which I am a board member, who approached Glasgow University to suggest that it do that, and it is a lesson in life that if you do not ask, you do not get. The university, to its credit, agreed almost immediately, secured the services of historian Dr Stephen Mullen, did its sums and set about a fantastic reparation programme that is about much, much more than just the money.

I want to end by saying something about tolerance. I have heard too many Members talk about racial tolerance today and how Britain is tolerant. I want to gently but firmly urge them to be careful about their use of that word, or be prepared to explain who exactly we are tolerating and what exactly they do that requires tolerance. Language really matters and we should all, including me, be ready to examine our own.