International Roma Day

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Giddens (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Whitaker on initiating this debate. What a shame it is that so few noble Lords have seen fit to contribute to it. It is perhaps sad testimony to the marginal nature of Roma in our society and in Europe more generally that that should be the case.

International Roma Day was set up for two purposes: to publicise the suffering and hardship that has marked the history of the Roma in Europe; and at the same time to celebrate Romany culture, the origins of which—as my noble friend said—seem to go back some 1,000 years. When one considers the enormous progress that has been made in overcoming persecution and discrimination against stigmatised groups in Europe, such as the Jews, the unhappy situation of the Roma almost everywhere is utterly scandalous.

There are 10 million to 12 million Roma living in Europe, plus several million more living in adjoining countries. For example, Turkey has a very substantial minority Roma population. According to most estimates, there are some 200,000 Roma living in the UK. Contrary to popular imagery, the majority of these are not recent immigrants but are long-standing citizens whose forebears have been resident here for several generations back or more. They have long been subject to the same scare stories as in other countries, but these have recently resurfaced, sometimes in virulent form here, as part of the climate of hostility to immigration fostered, if I may say so, in some sectors of the press.

A survey sponsored by the World Bank, UNDP and the European Commission carried out in 2011 gives statistical flesh to the reality of social exclusion affecting the Romany populations across Europe. It covered 11 EU member states and the findings are quite shocking. Levels of unemployment among the Romany people are on average three times those of the indigenous populations of the countries of which they are a part. Some 90% of the Roma across Europe live below national poverty lines. About a quarter of the Roma have no formal access to healthcare.

How can we stop International Roma Day being simply a nominal event, forgotten about the next day —Sunday’s speeches not followed up on Monday; or, in this case, Wednesday’s speeches not followed up on Thursday? I suggest three strategies, because we are dealing with deeply embedded problems and superficial policies will make no impact. I have three main points to make and I would be pleased if the noble Baroness would comment on whether she endorses them.

First, speaking as a sociologist, it seems important to have a comparative perspective. There is one very interesting comparison, although it is barely known in this country: the comparison that one could make between the Roma in Europe and the Burakumin in Japan. The Burakumin have faced ostracism and persecution, just like the Roma, lasting over many centuries. The Burakumin are physically indistinguishable from other Japanese. They are clustered in occupations which used to be considered impure or degrading. There have been many years of official denial of exploitation and exclusion within Japan, but that is now changing dramatically. There is a new generation of Buraku activists, such as the Buraku Liberation League. Interestingly, it has had close contacts recently with Roma activist groups in Europe.

The lesson, if you look sociologically at the Burakumin, is one that applies directly to the Roma in Europe and explains their long history. There is a causal spiral whereby forms of ostracism and prejudice help to create and reinforce the very traits which the wider public then condemn. The two cases are amazingly similar. For example, recklessness and criminality become real. They are produced by ostracism and then reinforce ostracism. That produces a deep historical cycle, which must be broken through.

Secondly, to see how we might do that in the case of the Roma in Europe and such other historical examples, we need more anthropological studies of how those mechanisms of exclusion work and how they are translated into those somewhat oppressive characteristics. In the case of the Roma, by and large, we simply do not have those studies. However, some are starting to appear. For example, there is a very interesting study sponsored by the World Bank, which has become involved in the Roma situation, which is concentrated on poverty, social exclusion and ethnicity in Serbia and Montenegro. That study is based on in-depth research, and it shows clearly how specific the cycle of exclusion is.

The implication which is correctly drawn by the World Bank is that we will never get anywhere in improving the situation of the Roma by concentrating on isolated policy interventions, no matter how attractive they might be on the surface. For example, there is a lot of material on trying to address the poverty of Roma children through education, but the research shows that that is subverted. We will not get very far simply by introducing well intentioned single-plank policies. We must address structural problems within the Roma communities.

Thirdly, in Europe, an investment-driven approach is the way forward, not one based simply on improved access to welfare. Modelling carried out by the World Bank indicates that full Roma integration in Europe, if set up as in its model, would produce a net economic gain of €0.5 billion a year to the EU economies. Breaking through the centuries of prejudice would therefore represent a major social investment, not just an additional cost to be foisted on an already overburdened system of welfare states. Interestingly, the World Bank has outlined how such an investment-driven strategy might be instituted. Its advantage is that it has electoral appeal as well as being directly relevant to the mechanisms of exclusion which have kept the Roma on the outside for so long. I hope the Minister will agree with these points and that she might build on them in her reply.