Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Debate between Dawn Butler and Kemi Badenoch

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her question. I agree with her that narrative is important, not just evidence. We in this House have to ask ourselves what story we are trying to tell. In the case of Conservative Members, it is a story of a shared history, shared values, shared culture and a shared future. We want to make sure that we create a sense of belonging for young people in this country, not an environment where they believe they will never be able to succeed because other people continue to tell them so despite the evidence. I will find out about the request she has made to the commissioners, and I am sure that they will respond in due course.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

This is gaslighting on a national scale.

“The New Age of Empire”, page 95, tells us exactly what is happening. On page 103, “This is Why I Resist”, by Dr Shola, explains about racial gatekeepers, which Musa Okwonga from Byline Times talks about. My question to the Minister is this. The Government briefed a clear message well in advance of this report landing. Why did they do that?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I think it is disgusting that a Member of this House will stand up and accuse people of being racial gatekeepers. This is the same nonsense we have heard time and time again—calling people Uncle Toms, calling them house negroes and house slaves, and calling them racial gatekeepers. The fact that the hon. Lady is able to stand here and use that phrase without any shame whatsoever just shows how far the Labour party has fallen.

[Dawn Butler]

Answer the question!

[Kemi Badenoch]

I will answer the question, but we in this House have a responsibility to speak about this issue with nuance and responsibility, and the way the hon. Lady has carried out the debate is disgraceful. In fact, she is one of the many people who continue to stoke division in this country, and I am very sad to hear her remarks. The fact of the matter is that this report was written by professionals and experts who have a view that is different from hers. If she has a view that is not acknowledged by others, she should engage in a sensible debate, not call them racial gatekeepers.

[Dawn Butler]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Minister has a responsibility to Parliament to answer the question. The Minister has given a statement, and she is supposed to answer the question. She has not answered this question.

Black History Month

Debate between Dawn Butler and Kemi Badenoch

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) on securing this debate today, and it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie). He said that if we were to take a DNA test, we might find that we were related. Well, I can tell him that all of us in the world share 99.9% of our DNA.

I would like to start with a quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.” Every year, I set a theme for my Black History Month, and this year my theme is allies. I thank all the allies around the world and the country who have joined Black Lives Matter marches, who have decided that they will be anti-racist, not just not racist, and who have made a consistent effort to fight the good fight, whether they are black, white or brown. What we have in common is that we are fighting for justice.

The pandemic has shone a light on many injustices that exist in the world. I hope that the Government will ensure that they follow the data when they allocate investment and funds. Too often, in areas such as Brent, a disproportionate amount of cuts leads to bad housing, fewer services and more deaths when it comes to covid-19.

I am passionate about history and how history is taught in our country. At the moment, history is taught to make one group of people feel inferior and another group of people feel superior, which has to stop. We need to look at history and improve it. Labour’s Emancipation Educational Trust is vital and a long overdue investment. Part of the solution is recognising the role that each of us plays in each other’s life and understanding that progress should mean not the destruction or dehumanisation of another person, but an understanding of each other.

[The Minister for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch)]

Could the hon. Lady expand on which parts of the curriculum she believes make black children feel inferior?

[Dawn Butler]

History needs to be decolonised. My hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead has already discussed how people can go through the whole of their GCSE and not hear reference to any black authors. They can go through history thinking that the people who were enslaved were not part of the uprising, without understanding the richness of Africa and the Caribbean, and without understanding all the leaders in the black community. I am surprised that the Minister has asked me that because it is so well documented that history needs to be decolonised. If we look at organisations such as the Runnymede Trust, it is absolutely amazing.

[Kemi Badenoch]

I will address the issues around decolonising the curriculum at the end of my speech, but the hon. Lady will acknowledge that, even though there may not be enough black authors, there are other racial groups, such as Chinese, Asian and so on, who we do not believe are inferior. So if it is just the number of people who look like you who have written books that is making you inferior, why are black children different from all those other racial groups?

[Dawn Butler]

There is no other group where people have been systematically stripped of their humanity throughout history, where colonisation has meant that people have gone to their country, captured them and taken them by force to another country, where they have been raped and thrown overboard in the sea. There is no other group that that has happened to. I am going to explain in my speech why it is so important that history is taught in its fullness. If the Minister takes the time to listen, I think I might just teach her a little something.

Public Health England Review: Covid-19 Disparities

Debate between Dawn Butler and Kemi Badenoch

Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In a time of crisis and great worry for many of us, it has been heartening to see different communities working together hand in hand and people acknowledging the huge contributions people from BME backgrounds have made to this country? As I have said, however, we must take the right action; we must not rush into doing the things people are asking for if it turns out they are the wrong steps to take but look right. It is not about optics; it is about doing the right thing, and that is why we are not rushing. We will have a proper programme. We will look at all the studies that have come out, not just the Public Health England one, and produce an appropriate set of recommendations that have the confidence of various communities.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

The PHE report has no third-party submissions. Where are the missing submissions and will the Minister place them in the House of Commons Library? The Government have a reputation for whitewashing reports and hiding from the consequences of structural racism. The Minister says she is not going to rush. In 2016, the Conservative Prime Minister said she would tackle the burning injustices in society. What happened? Where is the social injustice office that was promised in 2016? There is not rushing, and then there is taking your time and avoiding the issue. The Windrush report was delayed and edited, and some parts were deleted. That is a worrying trend of this Government. The PHE report essentially says that there is nothing internal about why black, Asian and minority ethnic people are dying of covid at twice the rate of their white counterparts. There is nothing internal. That means that it is external, and it is accelerated by this Government.

[Kemi Badenoch]

I utterly reject what the hon. Lady has said. With permission, Mr Speaker, I think I need to clarify some confusion that seems to have arisen. The Government commissioned a review to analyse how different factors can impact on people’s health outcomes from covid-19. That is what was published this week. Separately, PHE has been engaging with a significant number of individuals and organisations within the BAME community over the past couple of months to hear their views. That was not a part of this. A lot of people think that that is something that should have been in the report. We will be building on, and expanding on, that engagement as we take this work forward, but that is different from the report that we have commissioned.