Race Disparity Audit

Huw Merriman Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I can only reply to the hon. Lady with what I said to the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan). Religion is not routinely collected in many of the 130 data sets, so it would be impossible to include. It is not a question of excluding any particular group. Many of the data sets have existed for decades, and we as a society have to decide over time how much personal information we want to collect and publish on every individual in this country. It is sometimes helpful to collect such information, because it helps public policy making, but people sometimes regard it as intrusive. Our view on that may change over time, and we can always have discussions in this House about what level of personal information we want to give to Governments and then have Governments publish, so that might be a way to aid public policy making, and I am happy to discuss that with her.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

Having attended a failing school in your constituency, Mr Speaker —albeit before your time—and then having spent five years in a formerly failing school in west London, I have a real passion for what can be achieved through education if we have these race disparity audits. Indeed, that is exactly what happened to transform a west London school’s five A to C GCSE grade rate from 9% to 60%. In addition to sharing my distaste for the appalling behaviour of the Opposition, I ask Ministers to take the data and learn about the best practice in institutions so that it can be rolled out and applied nationally.

[Damian Green]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising an important point. Action that is taken at a local level—perhaps in an individual school—can be transformative for the lives of thousands of people. The audit will enable us to identify the areas with problems in a more fine-grain way than ever before, so that we can deal with those problems, whether they relate to education, employment and training or policing, in the areas where that action can have most effect. That will be how we can make the most beneficial difference to most people’s lives.