Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. It is only right that such a contentious report finally receives time for debate in this House. I have read the report, despite having to wait two weeks for an accessible version to arrive.

Following the Black Lives Matter movement, the commission had an opportunity meaningfully to engage with structural racism in the UK. Instead, it published incoherent, divisive and offensive materials that appear to glorify slavery, downplay the role of institutional and structural racism, and blame ethnic minorities for their own disadvantage. If left unchallenged, the report will undo decades of progress made towards race equality in the UK.

Since publication, the report has completely unravelled. Far from bad-faith actors, this report has been discredited by experts, including the British Medical Association, Professor Michael Marmot, trade unions representing over 5 million workers, human rights experts at the UN and Baroness Lawrence, who said it gives a “green light to racists”. Its cherry-picking of data is misleading and incoherent, and its conclusions are ideologically motivated and divisive.

It is absolutely clear to all Opposition Members and those across civil society that this report has no credibility, so I am disappointed to hear the Minister double down on it here today. How can she stand before us in this House and defend the indefensible? I want to ask one simple question to start: who wrote this report? Four weeks ago, she stood at the Dispatch Box and said:

“It is not the Prime Minister but an independent commission that will be publishing the report.”—[Official Report, 24 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 906.]

Despite what she says about unity, can she explain why multiple commissioners have disclosed that No. 10 rewrote parts of the report? What precedent does this cronyism set for future independent commissions? Furthermore, will the Minister explain how the Government came to publish claims that there is a “new story” to be told about slavery and empire, and will she distance herself from those abhorrent remarks?

The Minister says that commissioners followed the evidence, but this report marks a major shift away from the overwhelming body of data on institutional and structural racism. The Office for National Statistics finds that the unemployment rate for black people is now 13.8%—triple the rate for white people—so why does the report conclude that young black people should

“examine the subjects they are studying”,

instead of addressing the systemic inequalities within the labour market? Black women are four times more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth, but the report says that these numbers are so low that it is “unfair” to focus on this disparity. Does the Minister agree with those findings? Even the example about class B drug use, which she repeated today, is inaccurate, with the Cabinet Office admitting that there was a mistake. I was especially interested to hear the Minister highlight the recommendation to increase funding to the EHRC, given that her Government have slashed its funding by £43 million since 2010.

This report is part of the story that Government Members would like to try to tell about fairness. They say that they are interested in addressing inequalities of geography and class, but the truth is that they are not interested in ending inequality at all. In stark contrast, the Labour party believes in ambition and potential for all, including black and ethnic minority people, but we recognise that we often start from a position of systemic disadvantage.

It is our job as elected representatives to level the playing field, so I want to end by giving the Minister the chance to reject this report and tell the House instead what she is doing to implement the 231 recommendations in the Timpson, McGregor-Smith, Williams, Angiolini and Lammy reviews. What is she doing to comply with the public sector equality duty, and why is she not publishing equality impact assessments? This is what her Government would be focused on if they were serious about ending structural racism. Instead, they have published a shoddy, point-scoring polemic which ignores evidence and does not represent the country that I know and love. It is reprehensible, and I hope the Minister will reject it today, so that we get on with the task of tackling institutional and structural racism, which is the lived experience of many.

[Kemi Badenoch]

It is quite clear that the hon. Lady did not read the statement, which I sent to her in advance, and she clearly did not listen to it as I read it out. She is clearly determined to create a divisive atmosphere around race in this House and this country, and we will not stand for it. We continue to push for a fairer Britain and for levelling up. Labour Members continue to look for division. They continue to stoke culture wars and then claim that we are the ones fighting them.

I completely reject all the assertions that the hon. Lady has made—many of them false and many of them hypocritical. Whose party has been determined to be institutionally racist by the Equality and Human Rights Commission? It is not my party; it is hers. She and many of her colleagues are the ones who are complaining about their party’s Forde inquiry and claiming that their party has anti-black racism. Why do they not look at resolving the problems in their own house, instead of trying to spread them around the rest of the country?

I will acknowledge some of the questions the hon. Lady has raised and seek to answer them. She asked who wrote the report. The commissioners wrote the report; that is because they were independent. It is simply not true to claim that other people wrote the report. The commissioners have put statements on the—[Interruption.] I am afraid I cannot hear myself speak because of the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler). It would be nice if she stopped heckling from a sedentary position. Her mouth is covered, so I cannot even hear what she is saying.

If we look at the statements that the commissioners have made on the gov.uk website, they have been united. They have not broken ranks. They have not chosen to dissociate themselves from the report. The only thing that is happening is that Labour Members in particular continue to misrepresent what is happening. Why, for instance, will the shadow Minister not condemn the racist abuse faced by the commissioners? Why will she not condemn her own colleague, the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), who posted a picture of the KKK in response to the commissioners? Does she think that that is appropriate behaviour? It is the subject of a complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

We should go back to the substance of what this report is saying, rather than continuing to try to slander the people who have written it. These are professionals and distinguished individuals who gave up their time, and I commend them for their work. I am very proud of it, and of course we will not be withdrawing the report.

It is clear that today’s Labour party is functionally innumerate and does not like to see statistics and evidence, so rather than focus on the numbers and the data, they run away. They just want to continue having discussions on racism, which is where they think they are strong, but I am afraid that they are not strong on this issue. We will not sit back and allow divisive rhetoric and misrepresentation to be the story on race. We are determined to create a positive national conversation about this issue based on facts and evidence, fraternity and fairness, not on nonsensical accusations.

So I reject the hon. Member for Battersea’s assertions. We will not withdraw the report. We will look at what recommendations to take forward. The Government have still not provided a response, but there are many issues around that structural inequality that we want to have dealt with. However, I reiterate that, just because there is a disparity, it does not mean that discrimination is the cause. If we continue to identify discrimination right from the beginning without looking at the root cause, we will continue to offer solutions that do not improve the situation. I am very happy to commend the commissioners and I reject the hon. Lady’s very divisive rhetoric and assertions to the House today.