Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. This is very much part of the ethos of the equality hub: there is no point in enacting policy and then not checking to see whether it is successful. In fact, too many resources have probably been spent on creating activities but not necessarily checking whether they are generating the benefits that we expect. I thank my hon. Friend for that question and assure him that that is the way we intend to approach these issues.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

I put on record my thanks for the work of the Runnymede Trust and declare an interest as a former member of staff there, working as its public affairs manager. The Runnymede Trust is a leading race equality think-tank and has, through some of its quality work and research, helped to identify issues in respect of addressing race equality in this country.

I wish to focus on the commission and the issues around education. The commission focuses a lot on the educational experience of young black and minority ethnic students, but I hope the Minister will agree with me on this. A few years ago a Runnymede Trust article highlighted the fact that when a number of black and minority ethnic students who do well at GCSE and A-level go to university, their degree classifications are much lower, which has a big impact on them securing work when they leave university. Will the Minister agree to look at this issue and not just accept the commission’s report in terms of saying that for all black and minority ethnic students educational attainment is going in the right direction?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I am pleased that the hon. Lady has actually read the report. As I said, I am happy to debate and disagree, but not to be misrepresented.

The hon. Lady raises an interesting point about what is happening in education. I should clarify that the good news that the report highlights is around GCSEs; it probably agrees with her about what is going on in higher education. The report talks about black students being more likely to take poorer quality courses at less prestigious universities, and there is a big disparity in the fact that black students are the least likely to go to a high tariff provider and are 1.7 times more likely than their white peers to attend what the report describes as “low tariff institutions”. Part of the difference is due to the high progression rate into higher education for black students, but the report also talks about the sort of advice that they are given. It is very much an issue that we should explore further and I will encourage colleagues from the Department for Education to look into it. If the hon. Lady wants to write to them directly, I encourage her to do that.

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and note her comments about the former Runnymede Trust. We on the Conservative Benches have worked well with people such as Trevor Phillips, and one of the commissioners, Samir Shah, is also a former chair of the Runnymede Trust, but I cannot accept the behaviour of the current chair and some staff members.[Official Report, 22 April 2021, Vol. 692, c. 6MC.]