UN International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the UN International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

I am pleased to be having this debate on the day that the United Nations has declared an international day for the elimination of racial discrimination. The theme this year is racial profiling and incitement to hatred, including in the context of migration. I wonder whether the UN had any particular person in mind when it came up with that theme. I hope that, if Donald Trump is watching, he might send us a tweet.

Why this day? On 21 March 1960, at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, police turned their guns on protesters and started shooting. They killed 69 people and injured hundreds more. Therefore, each year, the international community comes together to observe this day. In South Africa, it is human rights day, a public holiday to commemorate the lives lost in the fight for democracy and equal human rights. Until now, Parliament has not fully and formally acknowledged this day. As the MP for Brent Central, the most diverse constituency in Europe, I am pleased to be leading this debate.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbouring MP for bringing this important debate to the House. She mentions the diverse constituency that she is proud to represent here in Parliament. Our constituencies are close to each other and share areas such as Kilburn High Road, where there is a lot of racial profiling of black men. I am sure that she will come to this in her speech, but does she agree that something must be done about the racial profiling of young black men in the Kilburn and Brent area? It is adding to the disillusionment of many in our society.

[Dawn Butler]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Racial profiling is not a good way to police communities; in fact, it builds resentment and adds to the problem. On this day when we acknowledge and try to eliminate racial discrimination, that issue should and must be addressed.

It is important that our Parliament marks this day. Until we live in a post-racial world, we must be vigilant. I am sure that that world will happen, but I am also sure that it will not happen in my lifetime. Our UK Parliament is the mother of all Parliaments, and we are at our best when we lead the way. While I am talking about leading the way, I thank Mr Speaker for allowing us to acknowledge this day in the state rooms at a wonderful reception last week.

I hear people say all the time, “I’m not racist; I have black friends. I haven’t got a racist bone in my body.” We need to wake up. I am not sure how many people watched ITV last night, but I did. It showed an undercover sting against a right-wing terrorist group that, although banned from the UK, still exists. We must be careful. Given the imminent triggering of article 50 and the election of President Trump, whom I mentioned earlier, this day is becoming extremely important.

We are witnessing a surge in intolerance, lack of understanding of different communities and dehumanising of individuals. Dehumanising a person makes it easier to justify inhumane actions towards them: “They’re not like us. They’re different. They have different colour skin. They have an accent. How can we trust them?” We should be embracing differences; they make us stronger, not weaker. We should be fighting poverty and global warming, not other human beings.

I sometimes wonder what UKIP expected when it published that awful “Breaking Point” poster depicting a crowd of brown-skinned refugees. Yes, UKIP’s side won the referendum, but racist views have increased, along with hatred and violence. Sexism, racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-refugee sentiment—all the tools of hate are on the rise.

[Tulip Siddiq]

My hon. Friend is being generous with her time. Does she agree that the Government should be doing more to take in refugees, that the abandonment of the Dubs amendment, under which we were meant to help unaccompanied children around the world to come to our country, should be condemned and that we should be doing more?

[Dawn Butler]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The thing about hate and racism is that it will stop only when we stop it. The Dubs amendment was important. It gave hope to people fleeing circumstances that we too would flee if we were faced with them. Rowing back on that commitment was hugely disappointing.

We must stand up for the rights and dignity of all. An attack on one minority community is an attack on all communities. Every person is entitled to human rights without discrimination. Protecting somebody else’s rights does not in any way diminish our own. Last week, I asked a question on the Floor of the House using British Sign Language. I did it to raise awareness for deaf and hard of hearing people, so that their language could have legal status. That in no way diminished my rights; it only enhanced theirs.

Next week, when the Prime Minister triggers article 50, Parliament will close for two weeks for Easter. During that two weeks, it is even more important that we are vigilant for signs of the aftermath. We must look out for our friends, our neighbours and people we do not even know. We must not forget that we are all a minority at some point, and we should treat people as we would like to be treated.

Angela Davis said that

“it is not enough to be non-racist; we must be anti-racist.”

Hate crimes have spiked since 23 June 2016. Reported hate crime rose by 57%. Seventy-nine per cent. were race hate crimes, 12% were sexual orientation hate crimes, 7% were religious hate crimes, 6% were disability hate crimes and 1% were transgender hate crimes. However, those are just numbers, which do not tell the full horror of those hate crimes, so here are a few examples of incidents that have occurred over the past few months.

Anti-Semitic stickers were plastered on a Cambridge synagogue. Three young males racially abused a US army veteran on a Manchester tram, telling him to go back to Africa. A British Muslim woman was grabbed by her hijab as she was having dinner in a fish and chip shop. A letter was sent telling Poles to go home as a fire was started in their Plymouth home. An Edinburgh taxi driver from Bangladesh was dragged by his beard. A 40-year-old Polish national was killed because he was allegedly heard speaking Polish. A 31-year-old pregnant woman was kicked in her stomach and lost her baby. On Valentine’s day, a gay couple were attacked by five men for falling asleep on each other. I could go on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Naz Shah]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I absolutely agree with her sentiments.

It is a harsh reality that many young black and Asian children, and children of other ethnicity, grow up in this country without the same opportunities as their peers. It is a harsh truth for those who will work just as hard but will be paid less—those who have their chances stifled from birth because of the colour of their skin.

[Tulip Siddiq]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission report from last year that showed that BME people with degrees are two and a half times less likely to have a job than their white counterparts, and are more likely to be paid less—an average of 21.3% less—than their white counterparts when they enter the employment world?

[Naz Shah]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I will mention that later in my speech—I am very much aware of it and I agree with her.

Sadly, what I have described is a well-evidenced truth, as my hon. Friend has just pointed out. We only need to look at the House of Commons research on representation in public life from June 2016 to see the scale of the challenge before us. Those from BME backgrounds are severely under-represented in all the professions—not only here, in both Houses, but as judges, teachers, in local government, in the armed forces, and particularly as police. BME representation in police forces is 5.5%. Twenty-four years since Stephen Lawrence and 18 years since the Macpherson review, we are no closer to having a representative police force. That is not progress. BME representation in public life shows marginalisation at best and pure discrimination at worst.

In August 2016, the EHRC published a major review of race equality in Britain. It revealed a post-Brexit rise in hate crime and long-term systemic unfairness and race inequality, including a justice system where black people are more likely to be the victims of crime while also being three times more likely to be charged and sentenced if they commit a crime. Race remains the most commonly recorded motivation of hate crime in England and Wales, at 82%. That is not equality.

Despite educational improvements, black, Asian and ethnic minority people with a degree are two and a half times more likely to be unemployed than their white equivalents, and black workers with degrees are likely to be paid 23.1% less than their white equivalents. That wage gap exists at all levels of education, but it increases as people become more qualified. That is not equality, and it shows that the challenge is increasing. Since 2010, there has been a 49% increase in unemployment among 16 to 24-year-olds from ethnic minority backgrounds compared with a fall of 2% among those who are white. White workers have seen an increase of 16% in insecure work, while the rise among black and Asian workers has been 40%. Pakistani, Bangladeshi and black adults are more likely to live in substandard accommodation than white people. Black African women in the UK have a mortality rate four times higher than that of white women and are seven times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act 2007. That is not equality; it is systematic failure.

While we stand here today and mark the UN’s international day for the elimination of racial discrimination, we must be mindful of the challenges. We must remember the reality that people of ethnicity face, even in developed countries such as ours. In February 2017, Baroness McGregor-Smith’s review of race in the workplace was published. It demonstrated how unequal our workplaces are, how the chances of those from BME backgrounds are stifled and how over-qualified BME workers are less likely to be promoted than less qualified employees. The review makes 26 recommendations, all of which I call upon the Government to implement.

Leaving the EU gives us an opportunity to decide what kind of country we want to be. A report by the Women and Equalities Committee considered the need for strong equality legislation after we leave the EU and made key recommendations, which, I would argue, the Government are morally obliged to enact. [Interruption.] I am not sure of the time of my speech.

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[Tulip Siddiq]

In my constituency lots of people want to take in children, but the sad truth is that the Government have said no more children are allowed in. Does the hon. Lady agree that perhaps the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) needs to have a word with the Government about the Dubs amendment before he starts talking about how people have changed in this country?

[Anne McLaughlin]

I agree. I wish that the hon. Member for Beckenham had stayed to listen, but perhaps we shall encourage him to read Hansard.

To return to the hiding of positive black role models, it is obviously worse for those who are not just black but women as well. I want to tell the story of Mary Seacole, in case hon. Members do not know it. She was a Scots Jamaican nurse who raised the money to go to the Crimean war and nurse war-wounded soldiers. What she did was not hugely different from what Florence Nightingale did, although some argue it was a lot better; I am not one of them. However, they were remembered differently. Mary Seacole finally got a statue last year. It sits outside St Thomas’s Hospital facing the House of Commons. MPs will remember getting letters from the Nightingale Society saying “Seacole was no nurse. Fine, give her a statue, but not there—not in such a prominent place. Hide it away somewhere.” I thought, given that she was the first black woman in the UK to be honoured in such a way, that that behaviour was an absolute disgrace. What is also disgraceful is the fact that in 2016 she was the first black woman to have a named statue in her honour. The history books are full of white people—men, mainly, but white all the same—but history itself is full of inspiring people of all ethnicities.

I want us to be able to look back in not too many years’ time and be horrified at some of the subtle racism we have heard about today. I want us to be embarrassed that only a tiny percentage of the Members of this House were from BME communities in 2017, and to ask how on earth we allowed our great institutions to be so white. If future generations look back at us and shake their heads in disbelief, so be it, because at least they will be living in a better time—a time when, I hope, discrimination based on someone’s ethnicity will have been completely eliminated.