Black and Minority Ethnic People: Workplace Issues

Lord Morris of Handsworth Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Handsworth (Lab)]

My Lords, it is often said that in politics it takes courage to champion a minority cause. Why? Because there are no votes in it. So on this occasion I pay due tribute to the Minister for providing time and indeed support for this important and timely debate. From her experience outside the Westminster village, she will have concluded that people are the greatest assets of any organisation. Therefore, it is a debate that is long overdue and relevant to the current economic climate. One could say that it is a debate whose time has come.

It saddens me that in 2016, 15 years after the Race Relations Act and six years after the Equality Act, we are still taking note. Surely, by any standards of progress, it is time to take action, not just note. The good news is that the employment rate gap between the overall population and ethnic minorities has been decreasing gradually, but the slow improvement might not be seen as good news for those still unemployed—those from ethnic-minority communities join a longer and longer queue to wait for a job.

The evidence is clear that for many from the ethnic-minority communities, the problem starts not at the workplace necessarily, but with the CV submission. A senior manager of a leading recruitment agency reported that 90% of applicants with an unusual or foreign name were ignored by his clients. But that is not news to applicants from that group. Their school, birthplace or addresses can prevent the application going further. I do not have to tell noble Lords why. If they are lucky to land a job, what then? They will invariably earn less than their white counterparts and that is a repetitive and recurring example.

TUC research earlier this year showed that black workers with a degree earned 23% less on average than their white counterparts. Black workers with A-levels earned 14% less on average than their white counterparts, and black people who leave school with good GCSEs are typically paid 11% less than their white peers. Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, said of the findings:

“This is not about education, but about the systemic disadvantages ethnic minority workers face in the UK … Even today race still plays a huge role in determining pay”.

In management, black employees also lose out. One in 10 people in the workplace is from a black or Asian background but only 13 hold a management position in the public or private sector. Black managers are mostly to be found in the middle tier of management where they are most vulnerable to reorganisation and outsourcing.

This debate invites the House to take note of the issues faced by black and minority people in the workplace. I have probably reminded this House before that when Bill Clinton became President he took a very long time to form his Administration, so much so that his chief of staff wanted a discussion about the delay. Having listened, Clinton sent a note back saying: “I want my Government to look like America”. That statement is also a test for our country. We have also failed. Neither our Parliament, our Government, nor our workplaces look remotely like the United Kingdom. As I speak, I can hear an imaginary conversation between the Cabinet Secretary and the Prime Minister. I can just about hear the Prime Minister saying: “I want my Government to look like Eton”.

Sadly, despite the good will of the Minister, some of us see this debate as the long journey continuing from the past: lots of words, but very little action. As members of the ethnic-minority community, all we ask is fairness, never favours. However, we also ask the question: how do we remove the barriers to progress of ethnic minorities in the workplace? Although the reviews led by the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, and Sir John Parker are to be welcomed, the immediate challenge in the Motion before the House is not merely to take note but to take action. To deliver a tangible and practical agenda for progress, I strongly support the steps set out by the TUC on page 8 of the briefing notes supporting this debate. They reference some of the issues I have raised, as do the two reviews and the Government’s BME 2020 policy. I support the targets, the promises and the challenges wholeheartedly, but if Martin Luther King had a dream, I have a nightmare with the fear that I have been here before: lots of words; no action.

I began this speech by referring to the Race Relations Act which outlawed discrimination on the grounds of colour, race, ethnic or national origin, and the Equality Act which legally protected people from discrimination in the workplace and wider society. Yet we still we have discrimination as an impediment to human dignity, when all we ask is the right to be equal. We are at something of a crossroads. We can engage practical equality or we can engage discrimination to the point where the effect on our nation, our children and our future will be sad, dangerous and disturbing. All we want is an opportunity to serve and the right to be like the rest of the United Kingdom.