Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Debate between Kemi Badenoch and John Hayes

Thursday 17th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

If it did, the hon. Lady would have been able to stand at the Dispatch Box and read out that section. In fact, the commission said that it did not find institutional racism in the areas that it examined.

A rhetorical trick is happening around this question. There is a difference between racism and institutional racism, which has a specific definition as defined by Macpherson. The commission said that there is racism and that it does persist. It has made recommendations on actions to tackle that in its report, and we have taken them up. It is quite wrong to conflate the two. We see crime in our country every day, yet we do not say that this is an institutionally criminal country. We look in the same way at accusations of racism, and it is important to distinguish where there is a pervasive institutional failing across the board that is unable to provide services to people of colour So I am afraid I reject the misrepresentation Labour Members make about the commission. I also remind them about the personal targeted attacks and harassment the commissioners suffered because of that misrepresentation—a group of commissioners who were all, bar one, ethnic minorities. I am very committed to ensuring that ethnic minorities in public life get a fair say and have their voice. What is wrong is when people with different opinions are attacked and told they are not allowed to think in a certain way because there are rules about what black people or Asian people are allowed to say. We reject that..

The hon. Lady raised the case of Child Q, and I am very happy to speak about that. It is an appalling incident. I am glad to see that the Met has apologised and that the Independent Office for Police Conduct is looking at it. We have systems in place to ensure that when things go wrong we can right them. What we cannot do is stop any bad thing happening to anyone in the country at any time. That is a threshold that is impossible to meet. What we do know is that everybody is rightly appalled and outraged by what happened to Child Q. That is an example of a country that cares about ethnic minorities and about children in the system. We will continue to do everything we can to support them.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests relating to higher education. In accepting my congratulations on her robust counter to the small minds who have criticised the Sewell report—small minds that cannot tell the difference between disadvantage, disparity and discrimination—will the Minister ensure that every Government Department effects what she has said today and what the report proposes? Education is at particular risk, from Brighton and Hove Council’s destructive and pernicious racial training for primary school teachers, which still has not been dealt with despite a cursory inspection from the Department for Education, to Nottingham University—my old university, by the way—which, appallingly, withdrew Tony Sewell’s honorary degree, while giving them to Chinese holocaust deniers. Will she issue guidance to each Government Department to stop the nonsense about critical race theory and white privilege?

[Kemi Badenoch]

My right hon. Friend is right to make the point about distinctions in language. Discrimination, disparity and disadvantage all mean different things. They can correlate and they can be related. Now that we have an action plan and something written, I can assure him that we will be propagating it across Government and not just across but beyond Whitehall.

My right hon. Friend is right to raise the case of Brighton and Hove. In fact, I read in a paper today about a black mother who complained that the anti-discrimination training is actually discriminatory. He is right to raise the case of Tony Sewell, who, unbelievably, had an honorary degree withdrawn because he did not believe that this is a racist country. That is an example of the sort of silencing of ethnic minorities that we are seeing across the board. It is terrible, and I have to say I was disappointed to see the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) congratulate Nottingham University on cancel culture. She will find that those sorts of actions prevent ethnic minorities from participating in public life.

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Debate between Kemi Badenoch and John Hayes

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I agree that we need to have a mature discussion, but I should let the hon. Gentleman know that the commission and its chair have been misrepresented on the comments about slavery. They have stated that any suggestion that they downplayed the history of slavery is “absurd” and deeply “offensive”:

“The report merely says that, in the face of the inhumanity of slavery, African people preserved their humanity and culture.”

The hon. Gentleman might be interested in the commission recommendation on new curriculum resources better to teach this complex history of the people of Britain.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I wish to report to the House and to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that 20 Members of the House, including my hon. Friends the Members for Ipswich (Tom Hunt), for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith) and for Broxtowe (Darren Henry), have written to the Charity Commission complaining about the Runnymede Trust’s treatment of the commissioners and its response to the report, which, frankly, reflects the outrage of those who have had their long-standing bourgeois liberal prejudices challenged. It is important that the Minister give me an assurance today that she will make representations across Government to stop the worthless work—often publicly funded—of organisations that are promulgating weird, woke ideas and that, in doing so, are seeding doubt and fear and, more than that, disharmony and disunity.

[Kemi Badenoch]

My right hon. Friend is right. It is important that we in Government do not inadvertently promote people who are pushing divisive narratives, and I will look into his request and see what we can do across the House and across Government.

It is interesting that my right hon. Friend, too, raises the Runnymede Trust. He might not be aware of this, but the Equality and Human Rights Commission has written an open letter to the Runnymede Trust. In its letter of 12 April, its chair states that the Runnymede Trust made “unsubstantiated allegations” about the EHRC, questioned its “impartiality and impact” and impugned its credibility. The letter also said that the Runnymede Trust showed “an apparent misunderstanding” about the EHRC’s

“mandate as set out in statute”.

I was really shocked to read the commissioners’ letter and to learn that the Runnymede Trust had even asked—or certainly implied—that the EHRC should be defunded, which is surely the opposite of what a charity focused on improving race relations should want, and the complete opposite of its objectives, which goes to the point that my right hon. Friend made.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Kemi Badenoch and John Hayes

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes]

To be clear, I started this contribution by saying that change and challenge were part of every life. Change is inevitable and constant, and advanced societies of course have people coming and going to and from them. Indeed, that has been the case in our country for a long time, but the level and extent of net migration into this country over recent years have been unprecedented. If we look at the numbers, over the past 10 years, roughly speaking in net terms, 250,000 migrants have entered Britain each year.

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

Contrary to what the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) says, as a first-generation immigrant, I know that it is wholly inconsistent to say that immigrants have not changed this country or communities in any way whatsoever. Sometimes there is positive change, and sometimes there is negative change—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman shakes his head in disagreement, but I am merely repeating his words. Does my right hon. Friend agree there are both positive and negative changes, and that we want more of the positive and less of the negative?

[Sir John Hayes]

I do agree, and part of that is about scale. Part of that is about the absorption of new peoples, about building the kind of common sense of identity that I called for, and about ensuring that what we share is more important than that which divides us, as I also said a few moments ago. If we are to build that kind of social cohesion and that civil harmony, it is important to recognise, as my hon. Friend says, the consequences of immigration, where they are both positive and less so. Many communities across Britain felt at the time of the referendum—using that as an expression—that some of the changes were not positive. That is partly because free movement tended to bring people to particular communities in the east of England, including in my county of Lincolnshire, and other similar places, so that the number of people who came was not spread out evenly. People were often concentrated in small towns that changed very radically very rapidly, and it is the extent of that change that causes some of the concerns that I have attempted to amplify.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Badenoch]

No, I am not interested in joining any nationalist party, but I thank the hon. Gentleman whose constituency I forget for inviting me to join. The fact is that if we are to have a calm debate about immigration, what we need are facts and figures, not smug self-righteousness, which is all that we get from those on the Opposition Benches.

I will continue on the topic of free movement, which is what this Bill is about. We all have different constituency experiences, which will have an impact on this discussion. I have had many positive discussions with Conservative Members. For instance, my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Colin Clark) talked about positive impacts in relation to immigration in his constituency. I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) talk about some of the difficulties that his constituency has had. We have both positive and negative experiences.

What creates the problem is when Members on the Opposition Benches, and perhaps some on these Benches, feel that only they have the best intentions and that anyone else who speaks with concerns is speaking from xenophobia and racism. That is absolutely wrong. We cannot think the very best of ourselves and the worst of anyone else who is not in our party, or who is not sitting on our side of the House. I am very, very willing, even as an immigrant, to hear arguments against immigration, because I know that immigration is a global issue. It is not a UK issue. Every single country in the world is talking about it. It is completely crazy for us to have this discussion as if it were a UK-only issue, or even an EU-only issue, and believe that no one else has the experience to be able to speak on it.

From the perspective of my constituency, immigration has, perhaps, an indirect effect. The north of my constituency has a huge biotech and pharmaceutical industry, and many of the arguments that people make there are very, very similar to those that have been made by SNP Members and by my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and others, about the need to ensure that we continue to have a strong relationship with the EU—that is something that I support. Speaking as someone who was a former London Assembly member, I have also seen how immigration has an indirect effect on those of us outside London. My Essex constituency has seen a huge rise in house prices and house building, which is having an effect on its population in a very significant and profound way. It is not because loads of immigrants are coming to take on our jobs, but because lots of people who migrate to London raise prices and take up housing there, causing a push-out effect on other parts of the country, which we do not get the resources to deal with. As was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham), who is no longer in his place, we should be looking at trying to reduce the impact of negative consequences on places such as Saffron Walden and Uttlesford District Council.

[Sir John Hayes]

The point that my hon. Friend is making, and her willingness to tackle what Trevor Phillips described as the “liberal delusion” about the problems of mass migration, are important in respect of housing, because immigration is the single biggest driver of housing demand.

[Mrs Badenoch]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. We need to look at what is actually happening and to think of an immigration system that will work for the very north of our country as well as for the very south. There will not be a one-size-fits-all approach. I am very willing to listen to arguments from Opposition Members about how much they need it, but they also need to extend the same courtesy and not pretend that everyone on this side of the House, including people like me who grew up in Nigeria, are racist. That is completely mad.