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Dr. Julian Lewis: Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I am a third generation descendant of an immigrant family.
My family recognised that it was incumbent on us to adapt ourselves to some extent to the history and culture of the country to which we were coming. It is not unreasonable to ask that of people who have chosen to make their lives here.
Mr. Woodward: It is not unreasonable to ask anybody to adapt to a situation, but there is a difference between adapting and being forced to reject one's entire ethnic culture. The hon. Gentleman's comments lie behind many observations that Conservative Members make.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: During 18 years of Conservative Government, there were at least five people in the Cabinet whose parents, grandparents or great-grandparents came to this country with almost nothing. Can we be sure that, in the next two or three generations, the same can be said of those who are black and Asian? That is the test.
Mr. Woodward: That is a perfectly fair point. However, I suspect that it will take a long time.
I ask hon. Members who speak of electoral mandates that have not been sought to create a multi-racial society to consider what the young black man or woman can still feel all too easily in Britain. Anyone listening to this afternoon's debate could be forgiven for believing that there is not much of a problem, that our discussion is an accessory debate that we do not need to hold. What do many black people feel when they watch television commercials that tell them that life is impossible without the latest product, but they have not got a financial prayer of buying it?
As Robert Kennedy once asked, what must these people's frustrations be? Young men and women, who desperately want to be part of our society, find themselves repeatedly excluded. What must they feel when they know that the chances are that they will receive only a second-rate education, that their children are four or five times more likely to be excluded from our schools, that they are unlikely to get a decent job and that they will be confronted by prejudice, direct and indirect?
Some who listen to this afternoon's debate may wonder why we are discussing the definition of institutionalised racism. The shadow Home Secretary clearly does not accept it. I remind the House of the words of the Macpherson report:
If we consider the net effect of the system in Britain today, a pretty damning picture is revealed. Seventy-five per cent. of ethnic minority people live in metropolitan areas. Too often, they are concentrated in the poorest and worst parts of those cities, and live in run-down and overcrowded housing conditions. They know that they are more likely to suffer ill health.
How must it feel for young black people to know that they are more than twice as likely as their white counterparts to be unemployed? A black woman--I accept that I am using a general term--knows that her chances of being unemployed are three times greater than
if she was white. How must it feel to know that one's pay will be low, that others will get the top jobs, that poor conditions will prevail at work, that one's family will be twice as likely to live below the poverty line?
We must always be conscious of the danger of banding groups together. Nearly 85 per cent. to 90 per cent. of Pakistanis or Bangladeshis live well below the poverty line. What does that tell those people about the opportunities that are available to them, and about their inclusion in--or exclusion from--our society?
What does our system of justice say?
Mr. Gerald Howarth:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
We all worry about being victims of crime. However, most crime is random and could happen to anyone. Racist crime is different. The victims know that they were chosen because of the colour of their skin. Black people take extra steps to make their homes secure; they often stay home at night. Victimisation is worse because it is often repeated. Often, it is deadly. As the hon. Member for Aldershot has often reminded the House, ethnic minorities may make up only 6 per cent. of the population, but their members constituted one in six of all homicides in the past three years. I give way.
Mr. Howarth:
I am grateful to the hon. turncoat Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward), but if the United Kingdom is so bleak after his new party has been in government for three years, why do so many people come to these islands from so many different parts of the world? They come here not because it might be a little better than Bangladesh, but because they have heard that Britain is a fair and prosperous country.
Mr. Woodward:
The hon. Gentleman obviously feels self-satisfied when he makes such remarks, which only trivialise the debate. I shall not reply to the nonsense expressed by the hon. Gentleman. It does nothing to recommend his party, and nothing to recommend this country as a decent, civilised society.
Dr. Julian Lewis:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Woodward:
No, I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman.
While there seems little hope of having crime cleared up for many black people, the chances of black people being suspected as criminals are disproportionate. Black people may constitute only 6 per cent. of our society, but one in six of those stopped and searched are from ethnic minorities.
Despite the comments of the hon. Member for Aldershot, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis believes that that is a serious problem. In one of our recent conversations, I was pleased to note that he did not draw the crude conclusion of the shadow Home Secretary, that there is a simple causal link between the change of policy last year and the exponential rise in crime in the past 12 months.
We all accept that stop and search is a useful tool in the fight against crime, but stopping people simply because their skin is black should have no place in the
criminal justice system. Searching people because their skin is black should have no place in the criminal justice system either. Stop and search should be based on facts, not prejudice. Yet the figures demonstrate why black people feel threatened and persecuted. The law should protect everyone; many black people feel that it does not protect them. As a society, we must never accept that police misconduct is an unavoidable price to pay for cracking down on crime. We should not have to choose between them.
Ms Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington, North):
Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating the borough police commander in Kensington, who has developed effective intelligence-based policing in respect of stop and search? That has resulted in the number of stops and searches decreasing, the disparity between the number of black and white people who are stopped and searched narrowing and arrests increasing significantly. That proves that intelligence-based policing is progressive in terms of equality and effective as a crimefighting strategy.
Mr. Woodward:
I congratulate the police in that area. That example, contrary to what the shadow Home Secretary seems to believe, is being pursued in other parts of the world. In America, for example, Boston community leaders have participated in such schemes. Crime is falling, trust in the police is rising--particularly in minority communities--and that pattern is being repeated in such places as Chicago, San Diego and Houston.
Like any other individuals, black people, like white people, will sometimes be genuine suspects, but that should not deny them the same rights and the same protection in police custody. There is surely no satisfactory explanation for why 29 per cent. of those who die in police custody are black when 6 per cent. of the population are black. It is deeply worrying to all hon. Members--or at least it should be--that only one of the 75 cases of the death of a black person in custody recorded by the Institute of Race Relations resulted in the prosecution of the police, and in only one case has the family of the deceased received compensation.
As Afro-Caribbean and Asian communities too often feel mistreated and, in the past, victimised by police, reports of deaths in police custody increase fear and mistrust, regardless of the cause. We need to understand ethnic minorities' lack of confidence in the investigation of those deaths. I say to the Home Secretary that surely it would be better to have a policy under which every death in police custody would be investigated by a completely independent tribunal. That would go a long way to restoring the confidence of ethnic minorities in our capital city and elsewhere in this country. They need to know how and why those deaths happened--racial bias, poor training or both?
There has to be a problem when such a body as the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination reported three years ago that
The term institutional racism should be understood to refer to the way the institution or the organisation may systematically or repeatedly treat . . . people differentially because of their race.
It is not about individuals but about the net effect of the system.
it is noted with serious concern that among the victims of deaths in custody are a disproportionate number of members of minority groups. That police brutality appears to affect members of minority groups disproportionately. That allegations of police brutality and harassment are repeatedly not vigorously investigated. And perpetrators, once guilt is established, not appropriately punished.
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Based on the many inquiries into alleged police brutality, there can be no doubt that they do not provide reasonable explanations--whatever they are--for the numerous accounts of lax or hostile policing reported in the United Kingdom.
The Bill will rightly apply to the Prison Service. It is of course right in certain cases that people who commit crimes go to prison, but what does the knowledge that they are six times more likely to go to prison than a white person say to the young black man or woman? We need to understand more about why they end up in prison. It is simple to condemn them, but very difficult to understand and change the patterns.
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