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4.28 pm
Mr. Hilton Dawson (Lancaster and Wyre): It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, and I especially welcome the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) about the strength, vitality and importance of the ethnic minority communities in this country. People sometimes express surprise about the relative lack of ethnic minority communities in my constituency, but I would dispute that. People fail to understand the nature of English history if they do not recognise the great strengths that the waves of immigration have brought to the United Kingdom.
I also wish to contribute to the debate because in recent years, to my deep regret, the city of Lancaster has very publicly become associated with an appalling example of racist abuse and harassment. I know all about that problem and wish to ensure that we can move on to a positive future.
This is an excellent Bill and it should be welcomed wholeheartedly by every hon. Member. My speech will be the shortest this afternoon, because I do not want to say much about the Bill, except to welcome the restatement by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary of his intention to introduce an amendment to enshrine the principle that public bodies should have a positive duty to promote equality. That is a profoundly important proposal. If it is properly enforced, it should cement the profound and irreversible change that our society needs if it is to enjoy and gain from the welcome fact that we are a multicultural and multi-racial society.
I hope that the consultation on how the principle will be developed will give public bodies a positive power to intervene in race relations issues, and the certainty that they will be called to account if they do not use the powers properly.
I have held elected office for the past 13 years. I have dealt with issues, as a ward councillor, concerning people who remain my neighbours and who are my constituents and who became the victims of racial abuse and intolerance. In that situation, public bodies were almost powerless to intervene. I do not intend to rake over the coals of all that, because the new positive duty can help us move for the future and can help Lancaster city council build upon the progress. The test of the new power for public bodies will be whether Lancaster city council and other public bodies in the city are able to build on the progress and resolve the problems.
The most striking aspect of the Macpherson report was the clear definition that a racist incident is any incident perceived to be racist by the victim or by any
other person. We must understand and appreciate how significant that is. We need to understand how racism is perceived by people on the receiving end. As a councillor, I worked with many people who were embroiled in a terrible dispute. I tried to understand why people held some of their attitudes, and tried to make them appreciate the significance of a thoughtless remark or careless gesture to the person on the receiving end.
Dr. Julian Lewis:
I have been agreeing with a great deal of what the hon. Gentleman has said, but I am worried by the element of subjectivity that he has introduced with his point about how an incident is perceived. I am Jewish and, from time to time, people involve me in incidents that I do not like. It would not do the Jewish community any good at all if I always assumed that those people were motivated by anti-semitism. I ask the hon. Gentleman to think again about perception by the victim.
Mr. Dawson:
I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has raised that point, as he helps me to take my argument further. Recently in Lancaster, a great friend and colleague of mine--the leader of the city council--became the victim of campaign of abuse and vilification. He is Jewish, and he takes his religion seriously. All of us in politics are there to be shot at and we must take the flak that follows unpopular decisions. However, that campaign was so concerted that the impact it had on that individual was probably disproportionate to the impact that it would have had on someone from a different racial background. I do not suggest in any way that the campaign was motivated by anti-semitism or racism, but I am trying to say that we should be more aware of the possible impact of our words.
If for thousands of years--and in the recent past especially--the history of one's race has been one of scapegoating and victimisation, someone's hurtful words might have an impact that was never intended by that person.
Dr. Kumar:
Surely we should look at the victim's feelings about how he or she has been treated. The same situation used to apply in terms of domestic violence until the definition was changed. If a victim feels that an attack was racist or anti-semitic, we should look at their definition, and at whether the incidents are systematic and there is ample evidence. That would answer the point made by the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis).
Mr. Dawson:
I agree with my hon. Friend that this is about appreciating the views of victims and understanding the impact of racist actions and abuse and thoughtless action.
I hope that the new power will be dynamic and creative and will encourage and enable councils such as my own to invest in communities and deal with the issues of racial equality, and with difficult situations. I hope that public authorities will support the proposal by holding events to celebrate different races and cultures. We must give local authorities a clear role in disseminating information and bringing communities together. That will help to build coalitions. So much of my work as a councillor was in trying to build coalitions of like-minded people, and to bring people together in understanding, tolerance and harmony. That is an essential part of what we need to do.
Mr. Roy Beggs (East Antrim):
I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you will accept that my Ulster Unionist party colleagues and other hon. Members from Northern Ireland are unable to attend this debate because the Northern Ireland Grand Committee is sitting elsewhere in the building to consider the Northern Ireland appropriation order. I trust that the House will understand if I leave once I have delivered my brief comments. However, I hope to return before the debate is wound up.
We welcome the Home Secretary's decision to include indirect discrimination in the race relations legislation. The Commission for Racial Equality has conducted three reviews of the Race Relations Act 1976 and, in light of the Macpherson report and the on-going debate in Parliament, it seems clear that change, via the legislation, is long overdue.
Given the findings of the Macpherson report, and the serious instances of institutional racial discrimination that it uncovered, it is paramount for the protection of ethnic minorities that the public sector become as accountable for its policies and practices as the private sector. To exclude areas of the public sector from the legislation--such as the police force, the Prison Service or the immigration service--and from the requirement to combat and pull out the roots of institutionalised racism would render the Bill fruitless.
At a time when the United Kingdom has never been more ethnically cosmopolitan, such an omission would serve only to alienate further those ethnic communities who often feel themselves pushed toward the periphery of society by institutionalised racism. Public bodies must be obliged to deal with this institutionalised problem. Ministers, their Departments and other statutory bodies must be held to account for both direct and indirect discrimination in their sectors. That will enable all communities to feel that they truly have equal opportunities, rights and respect, regardless of their race or religion, and to see structural prejudice and injustice as things of the past.
However, the Bill needs to define clearly not only what indirect discrimination means, and to whom it applies, but which groups are an ethnic minority or a religious minority. The present legislation falls short on such details. It leaves the United Kingdom's 1 million Muslims in limbo, because they are not a collective ethnic or national group and so are unprotected from unfair indirect discrimination. Religious minorities, like ethnic communities, must be protected from structural prejudice--as they are in Northern Ireland.
Clause 1(19)(c) of the Bill states:
The recent hijacking crisis at Stansted airport highlights the problem. It has emerged in the press that many of the Afghan passengers, who had just been held hostage for days on end, perceived that they were treated with contempt by immigration officials, who encouraged them not to seek asylum in Britain. Before being sent back to Afghanistan, many of those held hostage complained to their translators of intimidation and coercion by immigration officials keen to remove them from British soil. However, the correct balance must be found: the United Kingdom must not be seen by economic migrants as an easy opportunity for illegal entry.
Furthermore, clause 1(19)(d) excludes from challenge as unlawful discrimination acts leading up to a decision not to institute criminal proceedings against suspected criminals. In other words, acts taking place between the police response to a suspected crime and the decision not to prosecute are excluded. The CRE has rightly pointed out that the provision inhibits the ability of individuals to appeal against direct or indirect discrimination by the police or Crown Prosecution Service after they have been arrested.
That brings us to address the growing need for a statutory duty to promote racial equality, as we have had in Northern Ireland since the Northern Ireland Act 1998. The significance of a positive legal duty is that it will oblige public authorities to act to prevent discrimination before it happens. That is much better than using the law for redress, as it will pre-empt discrimination and nip it in the bud, while at the same time saving huge sums of taxpayers' money.
In Northern Ireland, a number of racial discrimination cases are pending, whereas before the 1998 Act there were none. We hope to see the number fall in coming years as the statutory order takes effect and institutionalises equality of opportunity across Northern Ireland's communities.
We in Northern Ireland have welcomed all those who have chosen to settle with us and who have enriched our society. Many nationalities are represented--for example, Chinese, Pakistani and Indian--as are people from the Irish traveller communities. Together, they constitute about 1.5 per cent. of the total population.
Although these communities are small by comparison with ethnic minorities in other parts of the United Kingdom, the problems that they encounter are the same,
and their struggle against direct and indirect discrimination in this country is just as difficult. The Ulster Unionist party fully supports and endorses their appeals for such structural discrimination to be firmly dealt with in this Bill.
Northern Ireland's ethnic communities are represented by bodies such as the Chinese Welfare Association and the Indian Community Association. The leaders of those bodies, and NICEM executive director Mr. Patric Yu, have described the difficulties of indirect discrimination that ethnic minorities face in many public sector areas, especially with regard to immigration control and employment opportunities.
However, we are aware of the Home Secretary's fears that the Bill will prevent the police from doing their job properly and that they will be hampered in tackling crime in areas where there are large ethnic minorities. We are well aware of the difficult and delicate work that the police have to undertake, and the problems that that might provoke in police stop-and-search operations, for example. We, however, believe that once institutional racism is eradicated from private and public bodies, people from ethnic minorities will feel more comfortable joining public services such as the police, and will respond positively to any such structural change.
Section 19B does not make it unlawful for a relevant person to discriminate against another person on grounds of nationality or ethnic or national origin in carrying out immigration and nationality functions.
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For example, that enables immigration officers to rule in respect of individuals on grounds of ethno-national origin as well as nationality, as long as they are acting within the immigration or nationality laws, or the confines of ministerial orders. That leaves the door wide open for indirect and direct discrimination against ethnic communities, and against refugees who may be seeking humanitarian aid in this country.
The Commission for Racial Equality and the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities argue that that omission in the legislation leaves open the possibility of unchecked discrimination, by immigration officials, on the grounds of nationality or ethnic origin. The Ulster Unionist party endorses the CRE's proposal that the clause should be amended and that national, ethnic or religious origin should be considered only in cases of humanitarian concern.
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