Public Order

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kate Griffiths (Burton) (Con) [V]]

[Inaudible.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Kate, I am terribly sorry, but I cannot hear you, and I suspect the Home Secretary cannot either. We will try to come back to you when that issue can be resolved.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I echo the remarks that have been made paying tribute to the work done by the police force in the face of such horrific mindless violence and acts at the weekend, but may I draw the Home Secretary’s attention to the fact that many of us are concerned that we are yet to see the details of the review the Prime Minister has announced? It threatens to be a distraction from the real problem at the moment, which is that so many BAME communities in this country feel that they are the disproportionate victims of stop and search and many other inequalities. We have to address those inequalities and we have to act now. We cannot allow this review to be a distraction and yet another review that sits on a Whitehall shelf, paying lip service to action rather than actually providing the action that we need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. She will know through her own work on her Select Committee, the Women and Equalities Committee—I pay tribute to her for the work that she is undertaking—that there are a range of inequalities that cover all sorts of aspects, whether it is ethnicity, race, gender or sex, and it is right that we find ways to work together to act in a responsible way to find the right solutions and drive the right outcomes. I think that all right hon. and hon. Members have a responsibility to show leadership on this, in our own constituencies but also at national level. We must give voice where we find injustice and inequality, but we must also do right by that inequality and find the right kind of outcomes and solutions.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement.