Race Disparity Audit

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The House is in a very excitable condition. I gently point out to the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) that she would wish to be viewed across the country and around the globe as an aspiring stateswoman, and I think her demeanour ought to reflect her ambition.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I am sorry that the shadow Front-Bench team find this issue so amusing. As someone who grew up in a deprived working class area—more girls in my school went to prison than to university—I take this issue very seriously. While I welcome the audit, the fact that it focuses on race, not the common issues that all communities face of broken families, poverty and getting into work, means that it misses some things. I point the Secretary of State in the direction of “A Manifesto to Strengthen Families”, which has been produced by Conservative Members, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), and addresses some of those issues in more detail.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

Much good work has been done in Northern Ireland in that field, and we will continue to spread best practice and learn from where we have had successes. Making that part of mainstream policy making is one of way of doing that. The hon. Lady mentioned educational attainment, and it will be interesting to see the evidence from free schools in the years ahead. I suspect that they will be shown to do particularly well by pupils with various forms of disadvantage, but we will develop the evidence over time and we will base our policy on evidence—[Interruption.] I can tell from the noise level that the Labour party has already come to a view about free schools without any evidence. That is typical of why their policy making is always so bad—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Calm. My advice in particular is tendered for the benefit of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant).

[Chris Bryant]

I am very quiet.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman witters from a sedentary position that he is very quiet. I think the answer to that is that it is all relative.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

May I remind the First Secretary of State that it was the previous Labour Government who led an inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence murder and, following that, introduced the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and the Equalities Act 2010, which require monitoring, and that this Government have neglected much of that? I welcome this audit, but ask the Minister please, for the love of God, to focus on the structural inequalities—that is, child poverty, which will hit 4 million by 2020, and the cuts to further education and to education maintenance allowances. Those interventions and cuts to those provisions are making it worse for ethnic minorities and white working-class communities. If the Government are serious, we need to stop just doing research and evidence gathering. That is important, but it is not good enough if it is not followed by action.