Black History Month

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) on securing this very important debate.

I am proud to represent one of the most diverse constituencies in the country. It is a constituency with one of the largest Caribbean and African communities in the UK and has a very direct connection with the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948. In 2018, the same year that we celebrated the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush, many of my constituents also found themselves victims of the Windrush scandal and suffered the terrible, deep emotional pain of rejection by the place that they had understood to be their country.

It is that experience that reinforced my belief in the urgent need for reform of the history curriculum. The Windrush scandal was caused by the callous policies of a Tory Government, but addressing it was harder than it should have been because far too many people in government and beyond did not have an accurate understanding of British history or, as a consequence, of Britishness. There was a catastrophic failure to understand that the Windrush generation had come to the UK as British citizens under the British Nationality Act 1948. Addressing the Windrush scandal was not about regularising the status of Commonwealth citizens who had come to the UK in the decades following the second world war, but about recognising their status as British citizens; a status that they had always had.

One of the recommendations made by Wendy Williams in her lessons learned review following the Windrush scandal was that all existing and new staff in the Home Office should learn about the history of the UK and its relationship with the rest of the world, including Britain’s colonial history, the history of inward and outward migration, and the history of black Britons. If such a programme is important for the staff in the Home Office, surely it is important for every child being educated in British schools to understand that we are a nation of migrants, that every community and every family has a migration story, that every historical event can be seen from a range of different perspectives and that telling the story of everyone who was there matters. These things help us to find what we have in common and help to build cohesion. In our divided society, that is more important than ever.

Curriculum reform is not difficult. There are brilliant resources readily available. I mention in particular “Our Migration Story” developed by the Runnymede Trust, the universities of Manchester and Cambridge and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Black Curriculum and existing GCSE modules by Edexcel and AQA, currently taught to less than 10% of students. I want to mention the fantastic work by Lambeth Council to improve the attainment of black students in the borough under the banner “Raising the Game”. This month, it distributed Patrick Vernon’s brilliant new book, “100 Great Black Britons” to every school in the borough. Curriculum reform is simply about taking this good practice and ensuring that every child in the UK is able to benefit from it.

I want to say a word in support of the Black Cultural Archives, based on Windrush Square in Brixton in my constituency. The BCA is the only national organisation dedicated to the collection, preservation and celebration of the history of black people in the UK. It has an incredible resource and a national remit, yet is not currently funded directly by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport or afforded the status of a national archive.

I call on the Government to deliver curriculum reform and to fully fund and resource the Black Cultural Archives in its vital work. Black history is British history and it should be taught and available to everyone all year round.