Rough Sleeping and Good Growth Funds

Debate between Jess Brown-Fuller and Florence Eshalomi

Monday 26th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important question. I highlighted the fact that, for many people leaving prison, a secure and safe accommodation may not be waiting at the end, so we are looking at working more closely with colleagues in the MOJ and across the prison estate to ensure that people leaving prison go to somewhere safe. The Secretary of State continues to press that with other Cabinet members and it is something we regularly discuss at the interministerial group, where all colleagues come together to discuss that. With regard to her question about reporting and the figures base, I will take that back to officials.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

Stonepillow is a local charity tackling homelessness on the streets of Chichester. One of its most vital services is the day hubs, where people can engage if they are at risk of, or are experiencing, homelessness, importantly without any judgment. So much of the Government’s previous funding has been crisis funding, but prevention work, as the Minister knows, is a key part of tackling the root causes and cycles of homelessness. If this programme is designed to be locally led, does the Minister see value in encouraging local leaders to direct some of the funding to outreach services such as the day hubs, which are currently working on an annual cycle and do not have the structure to know that they will survive?

[Florence Eshalomi]

The hon. Member has given a crucial example of where this works well, but, as she says, some charities and other organisations have been working with very little funding. I ask her to engage with her council to ensure that the vital funds that every area will receive are going to the right organisations. I will be happy to provide her with more details in that regard.

Black History Month

Debate between Jess Brown-Fuller and Florence Eshalomi

Thursday 22nd October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

The Minister will know that Munya Chawawa’s experience took place in my constituency. Chichester Festival theatre has been supporting the cast after they came forward and explained the racism that they saw. Munya also spoke about a “pipeline of hatred” that people are seeing on their screens and in their algorithms; it is shifting the Overton window and letting people think that things like that are okay when they are absolutely not. Does she agree that we need to call out the far-right rhetoric that is being pushed on to our teenagers’ social media screens, in order to protect people across the country who dedicate their life to creating wonderful art?

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the hon. Member; I know that she has been in touch with many of the cast members of that play and the Chichester Festival theatre. She is right that we have to ensure that we as parliamentarians, as a society, and as community groups do not allow this to be normalised, and think it is okay in 2026, in modern Britain. We can disagree on many things, but it is the responsibility of all of us in this Chamber, the Government and society to ensure that everyone is safe and able to live freely, and I want to be clear that the Government will not sit on their hands and watch this hatred thrive. In March, my Department published a cross-Government social cohesion plan, “Protecting What Matters”, which sets out more than 90 policy recommendations and commitments to improve cohesion, including measures to further tackle hate and inequality in everyday life.

Throughout the United Kingdom’s history, we have overcome adversity by coming together and showing that we have so much more that unites us than divides us. We showed that exactly 50 years ago with the passing of the Race Relations Act 1976, a landmark piece of legislation protecting the rights of all of us to live free from discrimination, and the 1965 Act, which built the foundations of equality.

History demands that, just as we celebrated the victories of previous generations, each of us must stand up for what is right in our time. That same unity remains our greatest defence. We must stand together against forces attempting to divide us, and must ensure that we all continue to be heard. I hope that Members will agree that there is a lot more that we can do, but united we are stronger. I commend this debate to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate on Black History Month and follow some incredible contributions from the Minister, the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra). I thank the Government for ensuring that the debate takes place in Government time, as that is a clear indication of just how important the subject is.

Britain’s black communities have enriched the social fabric of the United Kingdom, adding vitality to our streets, shops, frontline services and culture throughout the country. We would be a poorer, less dynamic, less exciting and less colourful country had individuals not boarded ships such as the HMT Empire Windrush and made Britain their home. As the Minister acknowledged, Black History Month has been marked for 39 years and when it was first celebrated, there were just three black MPs. Its purpose is to remember those who came before—as the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston said, we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us—but it also looks to the future to address the systemic issues that our black communities still face. In Chichester and throughout the country, we owe our black communities so much, yet, in truth, society has let them down badly and continues to do so. The lives of far too many people are still blighted by prejudice, discrimination and inequality.

I thank the Minister for raising the case that Munya Chawawa has brought into the light this week. He is an actor, comedian and social commentator, and his social commentary about his experience in the past six weeks in Chichester has broken my heart. He spoke out about the experience of the cast of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, who have been with us over the past six weeks doing a really cool production—it is one of the best versions that I have ever had the privilege of watching. It is also Munya’s first time taking to the stage—in a Shakespeare play—and it was incredibly inspiring to have kids from the BRIT School come and watch the performance. Munya has established the Black Boys Theatre Club, and it is his ambition to ensure that black children have access to theatre. I watched with delight all these young children talking about how much they had enjoyed watching Shakespeare in Chichester and how cool their first experience of theatre was in my constituency.

Munya spoke about a homophobic attack—it has now been called a hate crime, and an arrest has been made—that caused the show not to go up. When that happened, the rest of the cast spoke about their experiences over the past six weeks of just walking through the city. When they went for a night out in Brighton to get out of Chichester, they experienced racism there. Munya has said that he experienced more racism and xenophobia in six weeks than he had experienced in his entire life. He has been a tireless campaigner against discrimination —he is very good at calling it out and doing so in a comedic way that lots of people identify with; that is why he has such a huge following on social media—and I am really grateful to him for calling it out.

I declare an interest, as a trustee of Chichester Festival Theatre. The theatre has been trying to tackle this issue for years and years, and we have been having a conversation about it with the board. When we invite talented actors to Chichester Festival Theatre, we want them to feel like it is their home. We want them to feel welcome and included, so how do we make the environment around the theatre like that for them? I have been somewhat reassured by the outpouring of love both on social media and in my inbox from people saying, “I had no idea. What can we do?” One of the reflections that the cast shared with the theatre was that they were in the city centre when these things happened, but nobody called them out.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the hon. Member for highlighting what happened in her constituency. One of the issues that black people and black Members raise is the fact that it can be continuously tiring when it is only black people highlighting this issue. Does she agree that by raising this issue as a constituency MP, she is shining another light on it?

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

I appreciate that intervention. It is not the job of those who experience the abuse to be the only ones calling it out. Going forward, we are working as a community to bring voices together so that we can talk about and come up with actions to better support those experiencing abuse. That should not be the job of those experiencing intolerance and abuse day in, day out.

We also need to do some work with the police, whom I have spoken to at length over the last couple of weeks. When I say, “This is happening”, they say, “It was not reported”—well, it was not reported because people get really tired of constantly reporting things and not seeing a change. A lot of the cast members did not share their experience with the theatre before the homophobic attack that caused the show not to go up. It was only then, in a safe space, that they were able to say, “Actually, that resonates with me, because I experienced this when I was out in the city centre. I experienced this when we went out to get food.” They had not reported their experiences to the police, and the onus should not always be on them to do so. We need to have a wider conversation about what businesses and individuals can do in the city.

In truth, it feels like we are going backwards. Somebody said to me the other day, “It does not feel like the Overton window has shifted; it feels like it has fallen out of its frame.” Much of the abuse comes from individuals who are emboldened by the growth and increasing acceptance of the far right on social media, in the press and across other platforms. Those are spaces, often pushed by prominent politicians, that make individuals, particularly young people, believe that certain language and behaviours are acceptable.

Racist abuse and far-right views gain even greater reach when they are associated with political leaders; the algorithm eats those views up and sends them into those spaces. We all have a responsibility to challenge those prejudices and behaviours, especially when we have important political debates about issues such as immigration, in which people too often conflate immigration, race and crime. I for one do not want racism to become normalised once more, or for people to feel that staying silent is easier than standing up for others. We all need to call it out whenever we see it.

Moving forward, it is important that we in this place reflect on the scandals of the past that have left dark scars on our society. From Windrush to Grenfell and the crisis in maternity care, those scandals represent individuals and communities who have been let down, where systemic discrimination has played no small part. Those are individuals whose dignity and rights were disregarded because of failings in the state apparatus. I am proud that the Liberal Democrats are committed to fighting for racial equality, and that means unequivocally condemning racism in all its forms and tackling injustice wherever we see it.

It is a shame that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) cannot be here today. I see how much abuse he receives online on social media. When he puts up a post about something he is doing to fight for Eastbourne general hospital, someone will write in the comments section, “Deport.” His response to that is, “There are no direct flights to Eastbourne general hospital, so I can’t do that.” I recognise that the proliferation of abuse that is then liked and shared means that his experience as a black MP is totally different from my experience as a white MP. The abuse he receives is off the scale and totally unacceptable.

In the Liberal Democrat election manifesto, we committed to implementing a comprehensive race equality strategy aimed at reducing the disproportionately high maternal mortality rates experienced by black women and eliminating racial disparities in maternal health through a cross-departmental target and strategy. We also want to end the disproportionate use of stop and search and require all police forces throughout the country to adopt ambitious targets for improving the diversity of their workforces. We have also called for the reversal of the voter ID scheme, which disproportionately excludes minorities from democracy, and for all political parties to publish candidate diversity data. We must also tackle discrimination in the use of new technology, beginning with halting the use of facial recognition surveillance, which is much more likely to wrongly identify black people or women.

On criminal justice, it is clear that the immense disparity in different ethnicities in our prison population represents a systemic failing across society. As of this year, 12% of the prison population are black, far exceeding the percentage of the general population. That is underpinned by the fact that black defendants receive on average longer custodial sentences than people of other ethnicities for the same crimes. It is clear that much more needs to be done across the system to begin to address those disparities, particularly on diversity and training in the judiciary. The Liberal Democrats tabled amendments to the Courts and Tribunals Bill in that regard. We must implement a new data strategy across the criminal justice system to ensure that capacity meets demand and that we understand the needs of all users, especially victims, vulnerable people and those from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Black History Month is a vital opportunity to celebrate the immense contribution that black people make to our lives in Britain. There are those who ask why we need Black History Month; I hear that being said. That is the same argument used by people who say, “Why do we need Pride? Have we not got there?” No, we absolutely have not. What happened in Chichester just this week is a prime example of why it is all the more important to keep highlighting these things year on year. As the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston said, progress is not linear. It is very easy to slip backwards, and we all need to be alive and alert to that. We need to ensure that we represent all the wonderful qualities that we want our country to represent, not those that do not represent what we feel.

We must carry on celebrating Black History Month, because we have an immense contribution to celebrate, but it also provides the chance to recognise the scale of the challenge we still face. I am very grateful to the Leader of the House for granting time for this important debate.