Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how much funding his Department allocates from the public purse to tackling racism each year; and what proportion of his Department's resources has been allocated to race equality in 2019-2020.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
All forms of hate crime are completely unacceptable and tackling racially motivated hate crime remains a priority for this government.
MHCLG paid approximately £219,00 to projects specifically to target racism in the financial year 19/20. These include Show Racism the Red Card and the Anne Frank Trust who work with young people across the country to challenge prejudice and discrimination. We are also supporting Kick It Out to tackle racism in sport and have confirmed funding for the Kingston Race Equality Council to improve support for victims of racially motivated hatred nationally.
In addition to this, 2019 saw the first provision of an annual £500,000 grant to support Windrush Day celebrations. This annual grant will be providing £500,000 to a further 49 projects this year. Government has also committed to spending a total of £1 million on the Windrush monument, which will be placed in London Waterloo Station.
We are committed to continue promoting shared values among people of all backgrounds through sustainable social integration and meaningful civic participation, whilst tackling and preventing religiously and racially discriminatory behaviour. To support this, we have launched a competitive grant scheme for 2020-21 to support projects in this space, with a budget of up to £2 million.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to his Department's press release of 23 July 2019, when the additional independent adviser on Islamopobia will be appointed; and whether terms of reference will be provided for those advisers.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
This Government remains committed to stamping out anti-Muslim hatred and all forms of hate crime. It is unacceptable for anyone to feel unsafe while practising their religion and we continue to take a zero-tolerance approach to Islamophobia.
The definition of Islamophobia proposed by the APPG is not in line with the Equality Act 2010 and could have consequences for freedom of speech. We recognise he importance of this matter and will interrogate it in further detail.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what funding his Department allocates to the Government adviser on (a) Antisemitism and (b) Islamophobia; and how many members of staff does each adviser have to support their work.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
John Mann was appointed as an independent adviser on Antisemitism by the Prime Minister in July 2019. The Department has not allocated staff or funding to John Mann.
We continue to take a zero-tolerance approach to anti-Muslim hatred and recognise the importance of this matter. We will continue to explore and interrogate the issue of publishing a definition of Islamophobia in further detail.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many staff in his Department reported their religion as Islam in the latest period for which figures are available; what the reported ethnicity of those staff was; and how many of those staff were employed at each grade.
Answered by Jake Berry
As of 30 September 2019, 79 of the Department's employees identified themselves as Muslim and of Islamic faith
Table one illustrates the ethnic background of staff who have declared their religion as Muslim using the Department's employee self-service system. The overall declaration rate for religious identity was 66.4 per cent as of 30th September 2019. Staff who choose not to disclose their religion or are yet to review their diversity information are not included in the overall declaration rate.
Table 1 - Ethnicity | Muslim |
Ethnic Minority | 73 |
White | 0 |
Not Known | 6 |
Grand Total | 79 |
Table two illustrates those who identify as Muslim by Civil Service equivalent grade. Numbers of five or less have been hidden and replaced with ‘**’ in the interest of compliance with data protection legislation.
Grade | Muslim |
Administrative Officers | ** |
Executive Officers | 22 |
Higher Executive Officers | 32 |
Senior Executive Officers | 9 |
Grade 7 | 9 |
Grade 6 | ** |
Senior Civil Service | ** |
Grand Total | 79 |