Race Disparity Audit

Lord Singh of Wimbledon Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)]

My Lords, in the 1950s and 1960s it was perfectly legal to put adverts in shop windows saying, “No blacks or coloured people”. There has been a gradual improvement, but in the past few years here, in the United States and in much of Europe it has gone the other way. There is a lot of xenophobia, which was very evident in the Brexit debate. Does the Minister agree that to some extent that explains why we have this continuing problem?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord is right to say that we in this country have made enormous progress. I was looking at the Equality and Human Rights Commission report Is Britain Fairer?, which says:

“The reader will find that Britain has become fairer in many areas. We should be proud of and celebrate these advances. If we do not recognise the positives, we run the risk of feeding an untrue and excessively negative narrative that suggests everywhere you look we are becoming more divided and less fair as a nation”.


I think there has been enormous change and improvement in social attitudes, underpinned by relevant race equality legislation. The noble Lord is right that there was a spike—I hope it was just a spike—after the referendum result, and that poses a challenge to all those government departments with responsibility for promoting good relationships. There is particular responsibility for the police on the law and order front. In publishing this document, we recognise that we have progress to make in a wide number of areas.