Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Kim Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

Absolutely. I welcome the support shown by those leading experts in their respective fields and I thank them for their positive engagement with the report’s findings and recommendations that pertain to them. The Sewell commission, as I understand it, adopted an approach that was driven by a need for better outcomes, not better process, which is testament to its strong desire to effect change for all, not for a selected few. I am very happy to accept that there will probably never be a race report in this country that everyone will get behind. We have very different views on it, but what we do need is to hear from those people who have different views from what we constantly hear reported.

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab) [V]]

Minister, is it common sense to want to ignore the difficult part of our history and withdraw funding from charitable organisations, including the National Trust and the Runnymede Trust, which highlight the consequences of institutional racism, as members of the so-called Common Sense Group is proposing? Is that not divisive rhetoric that stokes culture wars?