Black History Month

Debate between Jane Stevenson and Abena Oppong-Asare

Thursday 19th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con)]

The hon. Lady raises some incredibly important points. I have a large number of black constituents. What national efforts need to be made to achieve the things that she is setting out so clearly?

[Abena Oppong-Asare]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and for the water. The Government can do a number of things, which I will come to.

I would like to bring the House’s attention to the largest ever survey undertaken for black Britons, carried out recently by The Voice newspaper and Cambridge University. I hosted the publication of the “Black British Voices” report in Parliament. The data I saw was shocking but not surprising. It showed that people had serious concerns about racism across education and the workplace. The report revealed that 41% of more than 10,000 black Britons surveyed identified racism as the biggest barrier to young black people’s education attainment. Of those surveyed, 95% believed that the national curriculum neglects black lives and experience. I am sure that Members agree that those statistics are alarming. Furthermore, fewer than 2% believed that educational institutions take racism seriously. In the light of the data, more work needs to be done to address those issues. I am worried about young black people growing up feeling that the system does not really work for them, particularly when looking at opportunities that may arise.

I want to talk about the 75th anniversary of the Empire Windrush’s arrival in Britain, when half a million people came to the UK after the second world war. It is important to reflect on the shameful Windrush scandal and assess what progress the Government have made to right the wrongs they have perpetuated. I am proud to represent a diverse constituency and to champion the contributions of the Caribbean community, but the Government’s treatment of the Windrush generation is one of the most shameful episodes in our post-war history. The Windrush generation were victimised under the hostile environment policy. People have been let down by the compensation scheme that was not fit for purpose and betrayed by the Government not implementing all the recommendations of the Wendy Williams lessons learned report. I have raised that with the Government a number of times and I am disappointed that there has not been a huge amount of progress in addressing it. I am proud that Labour will help to deliver justice for the Windrush generation by looking to overhaul the Windrush scheme and putting it outside Home Office control, and enacting all the recommendations of the Wendy Williams review.

I want to return to the asks that I made of the Government during the Black History Month debate last year. The first was for action to diversify the curriculum. As I have said previously, I want our children, whether they are black or white, in every corner of the country, to better understand our national history and culture. That includes talking about the good and the bad—the range of experiences that people have had. I am pleased by the progress being made by the Welsh Government; Wales has become the first UK nation to make the teaching of black, Asian and minority ethnic histories and experiences mandatory in the school curriculum. I believe that black history is British history and needs to be taught all year round.

My second ask was for the implementation of a race equality strategy and action plan. There has been much discussion about the inequality and structural racism in our country. The Government have done some work, particularly in relation to the Sewell report, which was seen as controversial, but they have not always been seen to go far enough in terms of concrete action. A race equality strategy and action plan, which is desperately needed, would cover areas such as education, health and employment, and should include specific proposals to address well-known inequalities such as the ethnicity pay gap, unequal access to justice and the impacts of the pandemic on black people. I support the Labour party’s policy on that.

In the current climate, as we come to a general election, I do not want any political party to see certain ethnic minority groups as a tool in culture wars. We need to make sure in the run-up to the election that everyone plays a role and that no one feels that they are being targeted because of their ethnicity. I am grateful, once again, for the opportunity to speak in this debate.