Black History and Cultural Diversity in the Curriculum

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) on securing this important debate. I pay tribute to and congratulate the almost 270,000 people who signed the important petition that led to this debate, including hundreds of Leicester East residents.

Across the world, racism and the far right are on the rise. It has never been more important that we learn from the history of racial oppression and end the injustices that exist to this day. With the Black Lives Matter movement, we have rightly seen renewed public calls for our schools to teach the true, brutal history of the British empire and the legacy of imperialism, colonialism and racism that continue to have a generational impact today.

The national curriculum currently omits the vast contribution that black people have made to the UK and the ongoing legacy of Britain’s imperial legacy. In reality, black history is taught in only 10% of all schools. To remedy this, the Government must pick up the calls from the National Education Union for a review of the curriculum and teacher training, and the strategy to make new entrants to the teaching profession significantly more diverse over the next four years. These are not new plans. In 1999, the Stephen Lawrence inquiry called for changes to the national curriculum to help tackle and combat racism in our institutions, including making black history mandatory. I support the mandatory teaching of history, specifically including black histories on the national curriculum in key stages 1 to 4.

I congratulate the Welsh Government on making black history mandatory in all their schools. They understand that by taking on the events of the past we can forge the future. As argued by the Runnymede Trust, the national curriculum should apply to all schools, regardless of status, to prevent some from opting out. Currently, free schools and academies do not need to follow the national curriculum.

The need for these improvements to the curriculum were underlined in March 2020, when the Windrush lessons learned review recommended that the Government

“tell the stories of empire, Windrush and its legacy”

Research by Teach First found that many pupils in UK schools will not have studied any novels or plays by authors who are not white. This shows how much more needs to be done to ensure that all pupils access a diverse curriculum.

When we reflect on the Black Lives Matter movement, it is crucial to recognise that the United Kingdom has been central to the historical subjugation of black people. It is estimated that until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, Britain transported some 3.1 million Africans—around 25% of all slaves—to its colonies. When the British Empire did abolish slavery in 1807, it provided 46,000 slave owners with today’s equivalent of £17 billion, 40% of its national budget. The British Government only paid off its obligations to former slave-owning families and organisations in 2015. Until then, black British taxpayers were among those who paid to compensate those that imprisoned our ancestors. They are among those still paying the price today, with the slow and inadequate support offered to victims of racialised state violence, including the Grenfell Tower disaster and the Windrush generation.

Present day global inequalities remain permanently shaped by the horrors of extractive colonialism and racialised subordination. Former colonial powers must begin to recognise and repair the historical damage upon which their prosperity was built. One example is the unacceptable instances of appalling murder and violence at the hands of the British state that have been erased from present-day memory of empire.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Kenya. There is a collective amnesia in the United Kingdom regarding British torture camps in 1950s Kenya. This is recent history. Members of the Kikuyu tribe were systematically tortured, starved, beaten, mistreated and raped, and the Sotik people were massacred, with 1,800 men, women and children murdered in a colonial land-grab. Across Kenya, Africa and other regions forced to endure the injustice of colonialism, indigenous communities were systematically alienated from their rightful lands. Yet these massacres have been airbrushed from British history.

The brutality of modern racism in the UK cannot be separated from this history. This perverse legacy continues to affect us in all walks of life, from police use of force to unfair immigration detentions to the disproportionate number of black children who go to bed hungry. If we are to end the scourge of institutional racism and the destructive legacy of colonialism, it is vital that children and young people are taught this true history. It is therefore essential that the Government abandon its crusade against the reality of institutional racism.

This Administration is underpinned by a deep and troubling broader political project that is designed to divide working-class communities against each other and to distract from the real causes of inequality and injustice. The Government must recognise that they risk being on the wrong side of history. They must abandon their divisive culture wars and commit to introducing an accurate and diverse curriculum.