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Mr. Straw: May I first say how delighted I am to see my hon. Friend back in his place in the House after a period of illness?
My hon. Friend is right to say that we have to take the chance that we have been given. The difference with 18 years ago and the Scarman report is that many white people thought then that the answer to the problem of racial prejudice and discrimination was to treat everybody the same. The suggestion was that all one had to do was to be colour-blind. We now know that the answer is not about treating everybody the same, but about treating everybody equally, including respect for and recognition of people's diversity and different needs. That is one of the most profound changes that we must introduce.
In some respects, I am optimistic, and I wish to pick up my hon. Friend's point about the change in the attitudes of police officers. In my view, attitudes have changed further in the Metropolitan police than in many provincial forces and that fact will emerge in the report of the inspectorate, which I will publish next Monday. I am sorry, but I disagree with my hon. Friend about the attitudes of officers at more senior levels. These days, many such officers are profoundly committed to an agenda of change and to making their forces anti-racist and agents for driving out racism in our society.
My hon. Friend also raised the position of the Commissioner, and I am sorry to say that I disagree with him on that point, too. I do not believe that it would have been justified or appropriate to ask the Commissioner to resign. He is in a position to take forward the recommendations. He has accepted the findings of the report; its conclusions, including those that relate to him; and the definition of institutional racism, including as it applies to the Metropolitan police. As a result not least of his personal commitment, and of the Lawrence inquiry, huge change has already been made in the Metropolitan police service. That is evident and, as I said in my statement, I believe that he is the man to take the programme forward. He will do so over the 10 months that remain of his normal period of office, which in any event comes to an end early next year.
Madam Speaker:
Order. May I urge hon. Members to reserve their comments for the debate that has been announced and that will take place soon? I can call only one or two other hon. Members, as I have the rest of the day's business to safeguard, and I hope that hon. Members will ask brief questions.
Mr. Humfrey Malins (Woking):
Does the Home Secretary agree that we must be very careful about how
Mr. Straw:
One of the reasons why we have arranged a full day's debate in due course is to ensure that hon. Members have the time to read the report. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman read the good debate in chapter 6 of the report, which explains why the Committee came to the view that its definition of institutional racism was the appropriate one.
Mr. Keith Vaz (Leicester, East):
I, too, pay tribute to the Lawrence family and to the Home Secretary. The report is a shocking document. It reflects tragically on the vulnerability of the black and Asian community, and Iam sure that my right hon. Friend expects its recommendations to be implemented in full. I am proud to live in a multiracial country, and to represent a multiracial constituency. However, I am desperately disappointed that our institutions are not multiracial.
I welcome my right hon. Friend's proposals about targets, but I would like them to be extended to the civil service as well. Will he say what he proposes to do with those chief constables and others who refuse to meet those targets?
Mr. Straw:
We have not got there yet. I think that they will meet their targets and that there is wide recognition of the importance of improving the number of ethnic minority officers in the police service. I am grateful for the fact that the policy has the backing in principle of Conservative and the Liberal Democrat Members. It enjoys a broad consensus, and I expect and believe that every chief constable--and every police authority member--will take it on. If not, I may have something to say.
Mr. Peter Bottomley (Worthing, West):
I support what the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Efford) said. People in this country who want to approach their Member of Parliament about racism or bad treatment will now know that every hon. Member will act as the hon. Gentleman has acted.
In addition, I welcome the support that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) has given the Home Secretary on the approach to the inquiry. May I ask the Home Secretary to recall that some people involved in the tragedy seldom get remembered? For example, Duwayne Brooks had to suffer the tragedy of watching his friend get stabbed: much of the media coverage devoted to him has been adverse, and quite wrongly so. Moreover, no one has to suffer the loss of a brother to understand what Stephen's brother and sister, Stuart and Georgina, felt when Stephen was killed.
Finally, will the Home Secretary try to resurrect a report for which Sir Michael Quinlan at the then Department of Employment asked in about 1986 from the Race Relations Employment Advisory Service? That report, which attracted little attention outside the Department, examined the cultural and behavioural problems associated with employment, even in Government Departments. That report deserves to be updated, and spread to other Departments.
Mr. Straw:
The hon. Gentleman was right to point to the many human tragedies that are part of the dreadful story arising from Stephen Lawrence's murder.
As for the report, I thank the hon. Gentleman for the tip, and we shall dig out that 1986 Department of Employment report. A good deal of work is going on already, but it is interesting how often Government Departments, like other bodies, tend to reinvent the wheel. It might be worth discovering whether it has been invented already.
Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford):
My right hon. Friend will know that his tribute to Doreen and Neville Lawrence is shared by me and by the people of south-east London. Does he accept that there will be a great sense of relief among my constituents--one third of whom are black--that institutional racism in the Metropolitan police has at last been accepted by the House, and that he has undertaken to take positive action as a consequence? I welcome the action that he will taking in putting Her Majesty's inspectors into the Met to examine unsolved deaths and murders, and the reviews of such cases. Can he confirm that the inspection will include the review undertaken at my request into the deaths of 13 young people in the New Cross fire in 1981?
Mr. Straw:
My hon. Friend referred to my acceptance, and that of the House, of the concept of institutional racism as defined by the inquiry. I should make it clear that the definition is also accepted by the Commissioner, who has issued a statement today, saying:
Mr. David Tredinnick (Bosworth):
May I refer the Home Secretary to recommendation 58 for a fully independent investigation of complaints against the police? May I remind him that many of those who gave evidence to the Scarman inquiry into the Brixton riots argued strongly for an independent inquiry then? The replacement of the old Police Complaints Board with the Police Complaints Authority, which is semi-independent, has not won sufficient confidence. Does the Home Secretary not believe that the independent investigation of serious complaints should be at the top of the agenda, rather than some way down it, as he has suggested it is?
Mr. Straw:
The hon. Gentleman is right. He might have mentioned that I produced a ten-minute Bill in 1981, which proposed an independent police complaints
"a belief in the superiority of a particular race . . . prejudice based on this belief"
and as
"antagonism towards other races."
Yet today, we seem to have moved to a definition of institutional racism that can involve accidental conduct whose consequences are not intended. Does the Home Secretary recognise that difficulty with definitions? Does he agree that, according to the first definition that I gave, 99 per cent. of London's police pass the test with flying colours?
"The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Condon has accepted part one of the Macpherson inquiry report and its proposed new and demanding definition of institutional racism for all public institutions."
On my hon. Friend's second point, I cannot say without notice whether the inspection of the Metropolitan police will include a review of the 13 young people's case, but I shall write to her on that.
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