Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Katherine Fletcher Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

We are all appalled at the details that we are hearing about Child Q. As I said before, I cannot comment until a full inquiry has come out, but it is important to understand what led to the failures. They are very significant failures, if what we are hearing and all the details that are coming out are true. We have systems in place to look again, learn lessons and make sure that they are not repeated. I am sure that everyone in Government will be seeing what we can do to ensure that happens.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

I have listened with great interest right from the start of the statement and to all of the questions, and two things strike me. Racism is totally abhorrent and I can completely understand why Members, especially Opposition Members, are absolutely fuming that it is not completely exterminated from our society, but I say as a scientist that we have to fix that problem via evidence and ensure that we are helping the people whom we seek to help. Does my hon. Friend accept that the evidence in the report and delivering on it is the most important thing to stamp out the evil of racism in this society?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I can assure my hon. Friend that that is the case. The evidence and looking underneath it at the details of what is happening is important; otherwise, how can we tell when looking at something negative that has happened to someone from an ethnic minority whether that is racism or not? In many cases, when the commission examined a case where racial discrimination was given as a reason, it found that that did not explain the disparity. One example is the difference between black African and black Caribbean students when it came to exclusion. There is a statistic that black children are more likely to be excluded from school than white children, but looking at the data, black African children, who are far more in number than black Caribbean children, are far less likely to be excluded than white children, even within the same communities, compared to black Caribbean children. They have the same skin colour. Racism does not explain that disparity. That is an example of why people need to look at the evidence and not immediately jump to a discrimination conclusion.