Race Disparity Audit

Debate between Fiona Onasanya and Damian Green

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend has a long and honourable record of campaigning in this area. The employment response from the Department for Work and Pensions will be targeted at specific areas, and 20 hotspots where the most difference can be made will be identified. I obviously cannot commit today to saying what those 20 will be, but I would be surprised if the impact was not deliberately designed to help the areas in which those communities tend to live, where the unemployment rate is not as good as it is on average.

[Fiona Onasanya (Peterborough) (Lab)]

I am slightly confused, so will the Government confirm something for me? Lots of information has been provided, but some of the data collated were already in place and the Government have not specifically told us what they are going to do about that data. A couple of problems have been identified, but talking about mentoring schemes is not the sole answer to those problems.

[Damian Green]

We have identified 130 different data sets, and coming up with 130 different policy responses in one statement might be a bit much. More seriously, much of the information is new—20 of the data sets are completely new—and it seems sensible to consider the evidence, work out what the best policy response is and then do the policy, not the other way around, which is how the Labour party seems to want to do things.