MV “Empire Windrush”

Lord Crisp Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness on securing the debate and on her very eloquent speech. What a pleasure it is to follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and the remarks about the future with which he concluded.

It is a simple story and a very powerful one. People were asked to come to our aid. They came, they helped and many—indeed, most, probably—were treated poorly. We have moved on from those days, as so many noble Lords have already mentioned, but not yet far enough. There is more to do, and I will illustrate that in a moment.

Speaking as a former chief executive of the NHS and former Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health, I know as well as anybody in recent years the great contribution that the “Windrush” generation—and, since then, people from black and minority ethnic communities more generally—have made to the NHS. When I was chief executive, the make-up of the NHS was more than 17% from black and minority ethnic communities. It had an overrepresentation of people from black and minority ethnic communities. I also know that there still was not the sort of equality of opportunity that one would like to see. The expression that became current in those days was the “snowy white peaks” of the NHS, and I guess I was sitting on one, because when you looked at the NHS, people from black and minority ethnic communities were congregated largely in the more hands-on—direct patient care—but lower levels of the hierarchy.

I congratulate NHS England on what it has been doing recently to try to make changes and secure greater equality of opportunity, particularly the recent workforce race equality standard, which has been applied across the whole NHS and which is revealing and bringing out details about how different groups are treated within the NHS. So there is more to do, although we have come an awfully long way. Perhaps, as a former chief executive of the NHS, I can also say thank you to the many people who have made such an extraordinary contribution to the NHS over the years.

I will conclude with two suggestions—two questions, really—for the Minister, which I ask him to pass on to the Department of Health. The first is that this year is also the 70th anniversary of the NHS and I believe there are already plans to celebrate that anniversary and to include the contribution of the “Windrush” generation. That needs to be celebrated to highlight the past, but we also need to highlight the present and the future. Something I would suggest as part of that is asking a young group of nurses from black and minority ethnic communities to write out their vision for the health service for the future, based on the principles and ideals that so many people have been talking about today, so that not only are we celebrating a generation from the past but thinking about and celebrating the ideas of a current generation about the future—it would be nice if any of them were descendants of the people who came on the “Windrush”.

Let me also mention one other proposal. I am talking very heavily about nurses, because I am delighted to say that I and my noble friend Lady Watkins of Tavistock are engaged in a campaign to promote and strengthen the role of nurses globally. I understand there is a proposal to have a statue erected in London to nurses who have come from other countries to support the NHS—not just the “Windrush” generation, but nurses who have come from Africa, India and elsewhere around the world. I think this would be a great symbolic gesture and a recognition from the NHS, which is a global employer and has drawn so heavily on people around the world. It would be a celebration of what they are doing and a promise that, in the future, we can do better.