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Mr. Peter Bottomley: The whole House would support that point, and I hope that the Standing Committee will do so when it comes to consider the Bill. I underline my hon. Friend's point by stating that four of my middle-aged black friends have been stopped. One, Bill Morris, has not, as far as I know, possibly because he is the general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union and has a driver. Bishop John Sentamu, our colleague Lord Taylor, the Liberal peer Lord Dholakia and Neville Lawrence were stopped. I do not know of a single white friend of my age who has been stopped. That is the underlying problem, and an outside audit of what the police do would be helpful to them.
Mr. Lidington: My hon. Friend makes his point well, and I agree with him.
The hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Khabra) called for legal challenges to housing allocation and education policies, and I will want to explore in Committee exactly what the Bill will entail for services other than policing. Lord Bassam said, during debates in another place, that the Government were concerned that a legal challenge on grounds of indirect discrimination could
Other hon. Members have mentioned the definitions of public bodies and the cost of the proposals. Those, too, are matters that we want to explore. I shall want also to explore further who should carry out investigations. My right hon. Friend the Member for Fareham said that if the Bill is to work, our purpose must be not to identify scapegoats but to help and encourage individuals and organisations in the public sector to improve the way in which they apply in practice the commitment to equality of opportunity that already exists on paper and in declared policy.
When I read the Lawrence report, one of the sentences that I found most striking came near the end, and it was made by the coroner at the inquest into Mr. Lawrence's death. In his concluding remarks, following the jury's verdict, he said:
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mike O'Brien):
The Bill fulfils a commitment to early legislation made by the Government in response to the report of the inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence. It will significantly improve the ability of members of the public to hold to account public authorities that act in a racially discriminatory manner. It will make a difference. I hope that the Stephen Lawrence case will be seen as a watershed in race relations in Britain, from which we can go forward. The Bill is part of that key process.
During the debate we heard a number of strong speeches from both sides of the House. Having heard the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward), I am proud that he has decided to join the Labour party. He is very welcome to the party and spoke enormously well on our behalf today.
There were strong speeches also from my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol, East (Jean Corston), for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh), for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Khabra), for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Twigg), for Clwyd, West (Mr. Thomas) and for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart).
We heard good speeches from the Conservative Benches. I thought that in many ways the best speech of the day was that from the right hon. Member for Fareham (Sir P. Lloyd), who made an important contribution to the debate. The hon. Member for Worthing, West (Mr. Bottomley) and the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) also showed that many in the Conservative party support the creation of a successful multicultural Britain. I welcome that.
It is a pity that the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) let the Conservative party and the House down, with a speech of monumental littleness and saloon bar prejudice. He posed as a defender of the police against race relations legislation, but as a former parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation and as a Home Office Minister, I know that most police officers in Britain would want to dissociate themselves from the hon. Gentleman's speech and his prejudice. They would have been appalled by it, just as I hope that they would have agreed with the comments of the parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation, the right hon. Member for Fareham.
I welcome the support for the Bill from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, which was enthusiastic and principled. I welcome, too, the Tory Front-Bench support, which seemed to be carefully worded. It was the classic approach, particularly the opening speech of the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), supporting the objective and endorsing none of the detail, but picking apart some of the substance. At least, that seemed to be the right hon. Lady's approach. I was pleased to note that the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), who also speaks from the Opposition Front Bench, adopted a far more positive approach to the Bill and to tackling racism in Britain than she did. The hon. Gentleman taught his right hon. Friend some lessons today about how these issues should be addressed. [Interruption.] It is always nice to sow disunity on the other side. I had hoped for a broader approach. It would have been helpful if we had had a more positive response from the right hon. Lady. It would have sent out from the House a good all-party message, not just to ethnic minorities, but to everyone in our society, that we are determined to make sure that we are a success as a multiracial Britain.
Mr. Dawson:
Does my hon. Friend agree that the one disappointing aspect of the summing-up by the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) was his lack of commitment to the concept of institutional racism? It is crucial that the subtleties of that key concept are well understood in all parts of the House in order to make progress.
Mr. O'Brien:
I agree that that is an important concept, and there has been much misunderstanding of its meaning. If we have time, I shall say a little more about how that misunderstanding has produced some of the problems to which the hon. Member for Aylesbury referred. Some police officers seem to have misunderstood the concept and construed it as a personal criticism, whereas we are highlighting the failures of an institution. Many of us, including me, are members of an institution that has many failings, although its policy is positively anti-racist. It is possible for an institution to have failings and an anti-racist policy.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
I agree with the Minister that the one sadness of debating such issues is that the Conservative party, inside and outside the House, sends mixed messages. Some Conservatives make clear their commitment to an anti-racist Britain, while others appear to pander to prejudice and bigotry. Until the Conservative party sorts that out internally and adopts the enlightened side of the argument, many people will not accept it as a responsible custodian of a multi-racial, equal Britain.
Mr. O'Brien:
The hon. Gentleman is right. We are receiving very mixed messages from the Conservative party. Its mayoral candidate describes as "disgusting" the policy of reintroducing the primary purpose rule that the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald retains as an option.
Miss Widdecombe:
Will the Minister give way?
Mr. O'Brien:
In a moment. We hear that the right hon. Lady wishes to restore a rule that caused great damage to
potentially include any age-based policy because of the different demographic profiles of different racial groups, and also any regional policy because of the different regional spread of different racial groups.
He went on to say that
challenges could be mounted to those policies that are helping individuals from ethnic minority communities the most.--[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 December 1999; Vol. 608, c. 130.]
There is a need to explore further the reasons for the Government's change of heart.
We must teach our young, both in the family and in our schools that each individual, regardless of their race, regardless of their colour, regardless of their religion has the right to live peacefully without any fear or intimidation.
9 Mar 2000 : Column 1278
That is an accurate description of what virtually every Member of the House is committed to.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing, West, I believe that one of the tests for us is whether in the next two or three generations we see British blacks and Asians in the Cabinet and as High Court judges, chief constables, senior commanders in the armed forces and permanent secretaries of Whitehall Departments, and know that they are there not by extraordinary achievement, but simply as a natural reward for the talent, application and drive of individual British citizens.
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