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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 165-iv House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
TERRORISM AND COMMUNITY RELATIONS
Thursday 10 February 2005 MR DARRA SINGH, MR ZAFAR KHAN, CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT IVOR TWYDELL, DR NAZIA KHANUM and MR TAHIR KHAN Evidence heard in Public Questions 406 - 458
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Home Affairs Committee on Thursday 10 February 2005 Members present Mr John Denham, Chairman Mr James Clappison Mrs Claire Curtis-Thomas Mrs Janet Dean Bob Russell Mr John Taylor ________________ Memoranda submitted by Mr Zafar Khan and Dr Nazia Khanum
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Darra Singh, Chief Executive, Luton Borough Council, Mr Zafar Khan, Chairman, Luton Council of Faiths, Chief Superintendent Ivor Twydell, Bedfordshire Police, Dr Nazia Khanum, Director, Equality in Diversity and Mr Tahir Khan, Adviser, Bangladesh Youth League, examined. Q406 Chairman: Good morning, ladies and gentleman. Thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning for this evidence session as part of our inquiry into the impact of terrorism and the fight against terrorism on community relations. We are very grateful to you for coming. I should say by way of introduction that it is always slightly invidious to go to a community the size of Luton and just invite a handful of people to come so let me say two things about that. Firstly, if anybody asks you why you have been chosen and why not somebody else, the entire responsibility for who is invited lies with the Committee and not with any of the witnesses. Secondly, the Committee is not expecting any of you - not even Mr Singh who is the Chief Executive - to speak for all of Luton; we have invited you because we think that each of you have a particular perspective or a contribution to make but not because you are formally representing Luton as a whole. As part of this inquiry the Committee was able to go last week to spend a short time in France and the Netherlands where we were able to meet people and talk about similar issues at local authority borough equivalent level, so it is useful to do the same exercise with yourselves. Before we begin the questions perhaps I could ask each of you to introduce yourselves for the record? Chief Superintendent Twydell: Good morning. I am the Borough Commander for Luton BCU of Bedfordshire Police. Mr Zafar Khan: My name is Zafar Khan and I chair the Luton Council of Faiths. I am an academic. Mr Singh: I am Darra Singh, Chief Executive of Luton Borough Council. Dr Khanum: I am Nazia Khanum; I chair a number of community organisations and sit on various committees and groups. I am here today as an individual rather than representing all of these committees. Mr Tahir Khan: Tahir Khan; I am trustee of the Bangladesh Youth League. Q407 Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. Could I start with a general question which I would like each of you to respond to, please? We have had witnesses from a range of different national organisations over the last few weeks most of whom in one way or another have said that nationally over the past few years community relations and community cohesion have got worse, particularly since the events of 9/11 and the focus on international terrorism. I would be interested to know from you perspective in Luton whether that would be your perception or not. Mr Tahir Khan: In terms of community relations the pro-active lead by the community and the leadership by the different communities within Luton have played in a positive way in terms of maintaining good community relationships in Luton. I do not think it helps to get portrayed in the media and sometimes the media have a role to play in that negative portrayal more than what it is actually in the community. Dr Khanum: I do not have the statistics to prove whether the incidents of racial attacks on Muslim communities or faith communities have gone up or not. I think the perception and the fear of the communities is that it is a diverse and multi-faith town culturally speaking and after 9/11 the Muslim people feel that they have been demonised by a variety of sources including the media and therefore the perception of other communities of them has deteriorated in their view. We did not carry out any survey to find out whether that is the case or not. Mr Singh: I share a lot of the comments that have already been made so I will not repeat those. One point I would like to make is that since 9/11 one of the things I have noticed is a sense of common purpose among key organisations and individuals within Luton to improve community relations and actually improve community cohesion. What has come out has improved communication, I believe, between faith groups, between the voluntary community sector, the council and the police. That is one of the impacts that has not yet been drawn out that I would like t point out. Mr Zafar Khan: I would also like to share some aspects of the analysis that colleagues have advanced. I think we could take this narrative a little bit before 9/11 and say that in the context of Luton's experience we were responding to and also being pro-active - as Darra says - to certain developments in our society both at national and local level in terms of community relations, racial relations and, of course, events that took place not necessarily in Luton but elsewhere about which there is a lot of literature - both government reports and other reports - which is relevant. I think what 9/11 did for us in Luton - and I do not want to say much about the national scene because your inquiry has actually covered extensively and has also received evidence - was that we continued our approach but we were thrown in at the deep end after 9/11. Personally I feel that we faced a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety and a lot of defensiveness from everybody concerned whether it was the mainstream majority - whatever that is - or the minority communities, particularly the Muslims. I think what is heartening - and I always say to colleagues "touch wood" - is that we were able to move in the right direction by mobilising very quickly and I have to say that the local authority responded from community groups and I would say here that the community groups actually did lead the way and I would say that it is only because good practice was already in existence. I think there are difficulties and locally we feel it; there are perceptions and particularly when one talks to minority communities - but particularly Muslims as they are the largest minority in Luton in terms of ethnic minorities - that there are perceptions, there are anxieties but I would have to say on balance that we are doing reasonably well, as well as could be expected. Perhaps we could do better but then there are other factors which would enable us to do better and have an impact on improving the situation. That would be my take on your general sort of question as far as Luton is concerned. Chief Superintendent Twydell: To build briefly on what has already been given in responses, the essentially good community relations I think were tested quite severely at around that time and since. I think they stood that test and while there has been some deterioration in trust and confidence in some of the communities in the town and the way the communities are perceived, I think the effective dialogue and the effective engagement that takes place between communities with the statutory authorities, including the police, and that heightened awareness for the need for a very effective and very pro-active response to events that actually are outside of our control within the town and the common purpose which Darra has spoken of, I think those things have actually combined to help us to be able to restore largely those good relationships and to ensure that they remain intact. Q408 Chairman: You said an interesting thing there; you said that a number of events have tested the structures. What are the events that you can think over the last few years that have tested the town? Chief Superintendent Twydell: I have been in the town as the Division Commander for the past 15 months and even within that time there have been a number of police operations which have not been Bedfordshire Police operations in the main but Bedfordshire Police have played a significant role in it. These are national policing events that have had an impact on the town. Q409 Chairman: Are these anti-terrorist squads? Chief Superintendent Twydell: Yes, that is correct. In addition to that there have been some events in the town that are not related to terrorism at all but are events between community groups and some criminal activities which clearly then also lead to tensions between different groups. It is managing that within the context of events outside of the town, as I said, which we do not have any control over. Q410 Chairman: It would be quite useful if between you you could describe for the Committee, when there is something like an anti-terrorist squad arrest or an operation, typically what then happens in the wider community? How is it found out about? What do people say about it? How do they react? How do you as organisations, including the police and the council, respond? I think the Committee would find it useful if you could talk us through the sorts of things you find yourselves dealing with. Chief Superintendent Twydell: If I could begin and then colleagues could come in as the police are the lead agency on that. Any operation within the town is clearly done working with Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist branch colleagues as well as colleagues from other police forces on occasions. Clearly there is a limited amount of information that we can give in the early stages of such an operation, but what we seek to do is at the earliest possible opportunity to tell a network of community leaders what is happening. That includes partner agencies as well. We give them as much information as we can to be as open and transparent as possible bearing in mind the nature of the operation, to protect the sources that we need to be aware of, and the fact that we are talking about matters of national security. Within that we try to be as open as we possibly can in what we actually tell people. Then we respond to their concerns throughout the course of that operation and then, as the operation comes to an end, we try to restore normality as such. Mr Singh: Could I just give another example of responses that we made? Just after 9/11 and after the invasion of Afghanistan you may recall that there was some early press coverage around a number of young people who had died in Afghanistan. Two of those individuals actually came from Luton. As a result of that we attracted a lot of press media attention - a huge amount - which seemed to go on for at least a week if not longer and Luton became portrayed in some areas of the national media as actually being linked to particularly one extremist Islamic group. What was fascinating at that stage - in the middle of something which was quite turbulent and outside of our control - because of the foundations that had been laid in terms of good communications, good strong political leadership by the then leader of the council and working with Luton Council of Faiths and with the police was that we started meeting regularly and talking issues through and just monitoring and being alert to circumstances and events. At that stage the leader of the council brought the three editors in of the three local newspapers to have a conversation about local coverage of events and the key messages that needed to be put out. The council, with our partners - particularly the Luton Council of Faiths - launched an advertising campaign about keeping the faith in Luton which is around diversity or promoting diversity and promoting a multi-faith approach to celebrating what was actually happening in Luton to try to counter some of the negativity. That was another example not linked to a local incident in Luton but international that had a strong impact. Q411 Chairman: How do people in Luton feel about reading about their town in such terms? Dr Khanum: I think people of Luton do not necessarily react all the time by reading what happens in Luton; they react to what they read in national newspapers and the media and what they see on television. In Luton in particular, because the community is the largest minority group and that composed of various other groups like Pakistani, Kashmiri, Bangladeshi, Middle Eastern and all sorts of Muslims are there, amongst them they feel a kind of bond when anything like that happens that we as a community are sort of targeted almost and probably people think we are terrorists. That sort of feeling gets reinforced be reading anything sensationalist in the media. Luton is a very, very small geographical area but within that the diversity is enormous and we know that we live on top of each other basically and we cannot afford to have lack of community harmony. Any race riots or community riots or faith riots will absolutely shatter whatever relationship we have had with the rest of us. I think community leaders are very aware of that and also the statutory authorities and public bodies are very aware of that sort of thing. That is why they work very closely with community groups. If any incident happens it happens not suddenly, not without the knowledge of community leaders and activists. That is why we can keep a lead on the tension, as it were. International incidents are really affecting Luton very much so at the moment and it is not going to go away very easily. Mr Zafar Khan: I totally agree with what has been said. I think it does not help when a local what I would call a "freebie" goes out of its way to find out the most topical analyst on terrorism at that point in time who is thousands of miles away from Luton and Britain to get his comments for a newspaper which I have always called rubbish and which remains anonymous. I have said that before and I have no problems saying it before this Committee. Then it is splashed on the front page and when people wake up on Sunday they read this and this is a person whose face they have seen, and incidentally I know this analyst personally, his face is all over this paper and the inference is that there is a huge terrorism problem in Luton. Something like that actually throws us very deep into it and it takes a hell of time to actually recover from that. We have a pro-active instinct in Luton on these issues because we like to think we have our finger on the pulse and when something like that happens it is extremely difficult to gain composure but I have to say that there are other media who have been helpful, who have been thoughtful locally and we have had airing on that media, whether it is the electronic media or the print media. When people have to sell newspapers and your competitor gets a scoop from an international expert on terrorism or whatever, whose face is on Channel 4, CNN, BBC 24 or whatever, then it becomes very difficult because the perceptions that are there become very reinforced and entrenched. That is the kind of fight which we are fighting. Chairman: Thank you very much indeed; that is a very helpful opening session. Mr Khan, your comments on the media bring us very nicely to Mr Taylor. Q412 Mr Taylor: I think to some extent my question has been answered but I will offer it to all our witnesses today nonetheless. In an open sense what would your response be to this question: has media coverage of the issues been a significant factor? Dr Khanum: I think it has been because we live in the age of the media and we cannot get away from it. Our children, young people and older people all watch television and read newspapers and obviously they have influenced public opinion quite a lot. As far as community relations are concerned, again what the media actually whips up in terms of terrorist cells in this country, terrorism by certain religious people or Muslim communities, these sort of irresponsible comments sometimes - Islamic terrorists, for example, Muslim terrorists - these sort of things actually make an impression on people almost unconsciously and they start thinking about the Muslim community as a whole as a potential threat to this country which is de-stabilising to any community relations and society where so many people live in different groups. The other thing is that I should not really say that all of the reporting is like this because I have seen responsible reporting as well on community incidents and even terrorism. It is not absolutely a blanket condemnation from me on the media, but I think there is scope for the media here to rise to this challenge and become responsible in their reporting so that they do not destroy the community relations in this country because this country is ahead of the other European countries as far as I am concerned in terms of race relations. I would not like this to be destroyed by irresponsible media reportage on terrorism or anti-terrorism. Q413 Mr Taylor: Does Dr Khanum speak for all of you or would anybody like to add a separate note? Mr Zafar Khan: I totally agree. I think there is a strand in the media which exploits the situation and sensationalises it but there is also serious media which offers a very objective and considerate analysis which is good and is not only critical of the extremists - and it should be critical of the extremists - but it is also critical of policy at national and local level which is good. Mr Singh: Whilst I share a lot of that analysis I think the key point is that there are some notable exceptions - and have been some notable exceptions - in some areas of the media. I think there is a distinction to be made between the radio and TV and the press. Speaking very personally here, there is also some kind of distinction to be made between the red tops and the broadsheets, and it is not always the case that the broadsheets are actually as responsible as they should be. Q414 Mr Taylor: Mr Singh, I am going to let you develop that in a moment, but I would like to ask a supplementary question at this point which is: do any of you notice a distinction - and let us confine ourselves to the press for the moment and then we will move on to radio and things like that - between national press and local press? Is there a greater level of responsibility or a greater level of irresponsibility in the local papers or the national papers? Mr Singh: My view is that I do not think there is a distinction; it depends upon the issue actually. In Luton we have three weekly newspapers and we accept that they are in competition with each other to ensure that they get a particular perspective on a story that promotes readership, coverage and sells advertising or sells newspapers. We have had examples of some responsible local reporting and some reporting locally which frankly I would consider not to be responsible. In fact, the Chief Superintendent has a good example of this. Chief Superintendent Twydell: Yes, I would support Darra on that. I can think of examples from both national and local media in terms of being sensationalist and the impact that that has on community relationships which can whip up an anti-feeling towards the Muslim community. An example of poor reporting was in relation to a protest about extremism that came about back in September of last year where a leaflet appeared in the town; we do not know who produced the leaflet but it appeared it had been written by someone from an extreme right-wing group and whilst on the face of it it purported to be all-inclusive it clearly was not in the way it took place. A local newspaper actually published that leaflet almost in entirety and within it were factual inaccuracies that would have actually given the impression that Luton had a number of Muslim extremists going round firebombing churches, which is absolutely not the truth and of course that had the danger then of whipping up a lot of concern. On that occasion we called in the editor and the reporter to actually explain to them that they had caused some damage to community relationships with that sort of reporting. Mr Zafar Khan: I think for me local press and local media are more important in the context of Luton and I will tell you why: not only because of these front page sensational reports or thoughtful reporting but because local people react to local issues and a letter columns are a very good parameter of testing how people are reacting and how an attitude is impacting on people's views. I think local media is very important for us as a local community or a cluster of local communities. Q415 Mr Taylor: You have told us what you think about newspapers and the harm they can do, what about local and national radio? Dr Khanum: I probably would like to say something about local radio. Local radio is not listened to by as many people as I would like to see in Luton to be honest because people are working and they read more newspapers in the morning or afternoon or watch television in the evening. Listening to radio is not really as widespread as I would have liked to see. However, on the other hand, we have a very good example of local radio in front of us which has contributed to community cohesion called Diverse FM. It is led by a few young Bangladeshis and every year for a month it comes to Luton and they involve all communities, all the diverse communities including the white majority community. I think it is an excellent example of how a radio programme for 30 days can bring people together and they feel proud to present their own cultures, their own interests, their own music and all sorts of things. That is something that we can say quite proudly that Luton has done. Q416 Mr Taylor: Dr Khanum, a moment or two ago you said that you did not think that people listened to local radio perhaps as much as you would like them to. Is that because they are listening to national radio or maybe they do not listen to radio very much at all? Would you make a distinction between the two? Dr Khanum: Yes, I would make a distinction. Whether we like it or not there is a class system in this country and even in Luton there is a class system. Many people who are middle class and educated of them will switch on their radio in the morning when they are shaving, doing things, preparing to go to their office and so on and so forth. The working class - this is a very broad generalisation I am making; it is just an assumption and my perception of what happens - do not put on the radio in the morning, neither local nor national. However, when they drive quite a lot of local Lutonians will listen to the Three Counties Radio. Those who are commuting from Luton to London or wherever to work probably switch onto a BBC programme, Radio Four. It obviously depends on which class you are talking about, but radio does not make as much of an impact on community relations in Luton as, say, newspapers with pictures, visual images on television and so forth. Q417 Mr Taylor: That has been very helpful. Would anybody else like to add to that? Mr Zafar Khan: Just one point, I think Three Counties has been very active, responsive, sensitive and helpful. I think they continue to learn and support this. Also Dr Khanum was saying something about Diverse FM. Every year the Muslim community has a radio Ramadan and we are asked to talk on issues that are of importance to Muslims and to the wider society. I think that also gives a window for the outside world onto the Muslim community. Programmes of different kinds are presented by young people and more professional people about Islam, about Muslims and about problems and issues and so on. I think electronic media is important. As to how much impact it has, I will take Dr Khanum's analysis, but we have to see. Q418 Mrs Dean: Turning to you, Chief Superintendent, have you actually seen an increase in racially or religiously related crime since 9/11? Chief Superintendent Twydell: There has been an increase in racial incidents in the town; it has not been a huge increase but it is very difficult to say whether that is as a result of 9/11 because there has been a campaign through the police and other agencies, a partnership approach to try to encourage people to report racist incidents and hate crime generally. It is difficult to say whether the increase can be attributed to 9/11 or not, but the increase is not significant; it is about 30% over the figures for 2002. Q419 Mrs Dean: Has that increase been across the board so far as people with different racial backgrounds or religious backgrounds? Chief Superintendent Twydell: Yes. We do not actually record those incidents by religion; we actually record them by ethnicity so yes, it has been across the board for African-Caribbean and people from Asian communities. Q420 Mrs Dean: Have you used any of the powers under the counter-terrorism legislation? Chief Superintendent Twydell: Yes, powers have been used principally in terms of stop-checks in and around Luton airport where we actually use Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 for stop-checks in and around there as part of the security measures for the protection of the airport. Within Bedfordshire I believe it is only in Luton that powers have actually been used. There have been a number of warrants executed: twelve in the last two years and five arrests that have been made, again all within Luton. They have all been in connection with operations involving the anti-terrorist branch of the Metropolitan Police. Q421 Mrs Dean: Could you say what measures have been taken to engage with the ethnic minority communities? Chief Superintendent Twydell: It has been at a number of levels. We have community police officers who are in place in different areas of the town so there is a day to day contact with them. We also have a community liaison officer whose job on a daily basis is to speak with leaders from the community and leaders from the youth community within the town to build up every week a very thorough community impact assessment of what is the state of feeling around the town about issues within the town as well as the feeling about issues which are outside of our control in other parts of the UK or outside of the UK. That forms a very comprehensive document which we use in my command team every week to decide on what action we need to take in order to reassure particular areas of the community in terms of our police operations and how we can provide visible support. That is done on a weekly basis. We have a youth officer who engages specifically with young people's groups and community groups within the town to do a similarity role. On a formal quarterly basis I have a meeting with community leaders throughout the town where we discuss issues around cohesion and community tensions, but at the same time there are more informal meetings on a fairly frequent basis in and around that. I think the key to it is that people within the various communities across the towns need to feel they have ready, easy access to me and to the specialist officers who investigate a crime and are responsible for community relationships. In every operational order we clearly assess the impact of any operation that we are going to carry out on the community in terms of whether they are going to be of detrimental impact to community relations by the action of carrying it out and how can we then minimise the risks to that in a way that we actually carry out that operation. Q422 Mrs Dean: What proportion of police officers in Luton are from minority communities? Chief Superintendent Twydell: It is about 6%. Q423 Mrs Dean: Do you have an aim as to what you should be looking at? Chief Superintendent Twydell: Yes, the target the Bedfordshire Police has is 7% and I think we are probably third or fourth within the UK in terms of the proportion of police officers and police staff from minority ethnic communities. Bedfordshire Police as a whole has a great pro-active stance towards trying to recruit from minority ethnic communities and has a number of recruiting officers in place specifically for that purpose. Q424 Mrs Dean: Do those police officers who are from minority communities fairly represent the different minority communities or do you have more from one community than another? Chief Superintendent Twydell: The proportion of minority ethnic communities from the African-Caribbean community in the town is about 6% to 7%. Our minority ethnic police officers are in the main African-Caribbean with a small number from Asian backgrounds. What we aspire to do is to actually increase that significantly and way beyond the 7%. Of course the proportion of officers from the ethnic communities in Luton compared to the rest of Bedfordshire is significantly greater. At the moment we do not reflect that within my division of the Bedfordshire Police. Q425 Chairman: Can you throw some light on something which has perplexed the Committee in other sessions? Dr Khanum, you say in your evidence that there has been a steep rise in young Asian men stopped and searched by the police and we have heard that from national organisations. We then look at the statistics and the police tell us that there was a steep rise, indeed it trebled between 2001 and 2003, but it was from two to eight. There appears to be a very strongly held perception locally and nationally in the Muslim community that there has been a big increase and young men are being stopped all the time, but when you look at the police figures we get that clearly is not true. Can anybody shed any light on what is going on here? Dr Khanum: If you look at the written submission which I sent I spoke about this steep rise in stopping and searching Asian young people, particularly from the Muslim communities, you will see that I did not mention Luton there because I do not have the figures. Many people do not know about the Luton situation, but where nationally there is a steep rise mainly in London, Birmingham, Manchester and big cities, obviously these are highlighted in the media as well as various Muslim umbrella organisations in the country like the MCB (the Muslim Council of Britain). We know that there is a steep rise and that makes an impact on our perception and if you talk to quite a lot of people in Luton who do not know the facts and figures their perception is that stopping and searching must have increased in Luton as well because if the national picture is like that then it would be like that in Luton as well. Many of these are not reported by the media or anything like that. Racial harassment, harassment to Muslim communities and so on and so forth are not necessarily always reported by people who are at the receiving end of the harassment. They may not report this because they may not feel that having reported those things there will be an outcome which they would like to see. Q426 Chairman: I do not want to put words into your mouth, but to some extent so far as Luton is concerned it may one of these issues of perception: because everybody believe this is happening everywhere people think it is happening in their community even though it has not happened to them or necessarily anybody they know. Dr Khanum: Absolutely, but I would like to say something about the police. Luton policing is very different from policing in metropolitan areas and other places. I worked in Tower Hamlets as well; for many years I worked in Ealing Borough Council, in Tower Hamlets Borough Council in GLC and I had the opportunity to see the community's relationship with police in Tower Hamlets in particular and also in Ealing. In Luton they definitely command a lot of trust from the communities which they did not enjoy in Tower Hamlets in my time, for example. Although Luton police have a lot to achieve in terms of real diversity from the police force because they do not really represent particularly the Muslim community which is the largest in Luton in terms of minority ethnic communities so they will have to do that. Pakistani and Bangladeshi people have to be there and people who feel that they can communicate with communities. The other thing is that women from these communities feel very oppressed by whatever happens nationally or internationally in the Muslim community because many of them when they go alone to shopping centres for example or the GPs surgeries they feel fearful that they might be attacked and comments would be made to them because some of them personally experienced these in shopping centres in particular. I think that the police should have women from the Asian communities on their workforce to gain that sort of confidence. It may not improve the incident level but confidence level will go up. Q427 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: Just as a matter of interest, the statistics for stop and searches for Bedfordshire Police are available publicly and I hope you will be reassured to know that the figures for stopping and searching white people grew six fold over the same period of time. You made a very interesting observation about racial harassment and I wonder if you would like to say anything more about that. You have said that the level of racial harassment was significant and yet not recorded. Dr Khanum: Not reported; if it is reported it will be recorded obviously, but if it is not reported and the people feel that having reported something they may not see the result they would like to see basically, that is the people who are harassing should be arrested or something because evidence, witnesses and all sorts of things will come their way and it will be very difficult for them to find those things and many people do not report racial harassment in Luton or elsewhere. That is quite true. Mr Singh: I think Dr Khanum is absolutely right. There has always been an issue about how do we best, as a group of organisations, encourage those individuals who are suffering or have suffered racial harassment to report that incident. In Luton we believe that one of the reasons why the number of reported incidents of racial harassment has gone up, as the Chief Superintendent mentioned a little bit earlier, is that we have been publicising a multi-agency approach. I can never remember what the initials are; it is Luton Multi-Agency Racist Agency Group, LMARA. There has been a lot of publicity for example on the sides of buses there are adverts; it has been tried in other authority areas as well. Whilst I would not claim that we capture every incident I would say that we have significantly increased the level of reporting. The second really important point is that once an incident is reported we need to work further to develop confidence in the community that actually something will be done. Back in 2001/02 our statistics show that only 92.9% of reported racist incidents were followed through, investigated and some action taken. In 2003/04 we have driven that up to 97.9%. We need to go further but that is an important area I think for statutory agencies, ourselves and the police and we now enable, since 2001/02, local people to report racist incidents to leisure centres, libraries, lots of council buildings as well as actually reporting them to the police. It is not perfect yet but we are trying to work together to improve the level of reporting. Q428 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: Can I first of all say that I thought the report Sticking Together was excellent. I enjoyed reading your report, Dr Khanum; I thought it was very incisive and made me understand quite a lot of things about Luton. This is an excellent report; I have seen many excellent reports reside in a drawer. They are written for the benefit of the people that have engaged in the activity but they do not produce useful purpose. Of the good sentiment expressed here and the recommendations that this report contains, how many have actually been delivered? There was not sort of plan on the back for me to see; the recommendations were not numbered and I could not see any plan of activity which actually delivered against some of these excellent recommendations. Mr Singh: As you will know from the background to that report, the Sticking Together report was as a result of a scrutiny panel which did excellent scrutiny work led by councillors of all political parties in Luton. It was commenced just after the publication of the Lord Ousley report on Bradford in 2001 before 9/11 but was actually very timely given the impact of international events. In terms of the actions I would say it was a very courageous thing for the councillors to do, to open up and say "We want a public debate about what it means to live in Luton, what do people of different ages and different ethnic backgrounds, different genders, think about issues?" A lot of ideas came up as a result of all the consultation so this scrutiny panel actually identified a list of the top ten recommendations. One of the big recommendations is actually about an inequalities agency. We do not have an inequality agency in Luton and there was a recommendation that we should investigate the feasibility of the need of an inequalities agency in Luton and how we would fund it. We have actually worked with the Commission for Racial Equality and we are about to complete the first stage of the feasibility study working with our local strategic partnership and with community voluntary organisations. I think Dr Khanum is in fact involved. So that is one recommendation we have moved forward. Other recommendations which are moving forward are around communications. We worked to beef up the council's approach to communications; we created a new unit, not just as a result of this report but because our approach is fragmented. We have become more pro-active I think and more assertive with the local media. We have moved our civic newspaper Luton Line to a monthly publication; we carry positive stories from across the communities. Q429 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: When I read your report and looked at some of the areas of your consideration, despite advice received from Dr Khanum you omitted health as a consideration. You refer to the publications that are now being produced as a result of the Sticking Together report, how many of these publications are joint publications with other agencies which demonstrate a sort of working together? How many come out with joint publications with the police or joint publications with health and other agencies who are responsible for addressing some of the serious discrepancies that exist within Luton between the white population and the non-white population. Mr Singh: I cannot list them all but I will give you just a couple of examples, if I may. We work very closely as a council with health and with the police as well as a range of other agencies. In Luton Line we have regular features about our achievements including achievements in terms of the work of the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership which the Superintendent chairs and I am the Vice-Chair. We include issues around health and health inequalities - you are quite right to pick those up - between different communities and people in different parts of the town. We work very closely with the primary care trust, developed the health improvement plan and we bring all this together in the local strategic partnership which is called the Luton Forum. We published our first community strategy in May/June 2002; we are actually refreshing that. There are six themes to add to our community strategy, one of those is health and social care, so bringing together key people in the health sector with voluntary and community sector and with the local government and local council to look at health and social care issues. For example, we have a zero delayed discharge from hospital and that affects a number of people from different communities. We have an excellent service that people of the ground are delivering around falls; older people from different ethnic backgrounds in their own homes who may fall and we actually respond to those issues jointly. So there is a range of communications. We have a community safety strategy which every area publishes every three years; we are working very closely with the police to publish a new one in April. Q430 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: Clearly there is a lot of good practice in Luton. Have you looked at other models of good practice in the UK? If so, who is there with you in terms of good practice? Given that you are developing an expertise in the area, what are you doing to ensure that communities in the north and other parts of the country with a diverse population are benefiting from your very important experience? Mr Singh: The work that we have done to date has involved myself and others learning from other areas. I was fortunate to be asked to be a member of the council review team so I benefited from learning and visiting some northern towns and cities and also some in the midlands and in the south, so learning from Southall and Ealing, learning from Leicester, also learning from Bradford, Oldham and Burnley and bringing those messages back. The scrutiny review itself also involved councillors looking at the situation in Bradford, picking up the analysis that was in Lord Ousley's report and actually learning from that as well. In terms of sharing what we do, we do that through networks, whether that is the Local Government Association or networks that councillors are involved in. We are also open to approaches. We do not have a formal network where we go out at this stage. We have only had one conference on community cohesion where we actually asked Ted Cantle to come to lead that. We invited people from other authorities at the launch of the Sticking Together report. We are open and receptive both ways. One of the thing we particular want to do is to learn from places like Leicester particularly and their work with the local media. You may well have heard about the report in the Leicester Mercury which is exemplar in terms of promoting community cohesion and good, positive community relations in the printed word. We have also fed into the LGA guidance. You may be aware that some years ago the LGA issued some guidance with the Home Office, the CRE and ODPM and we actually made an input into that as well. Q431 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: What role does central government play in all of this? What can we do to help you further? Mr Singh: A critical role given the relationship of the central local partnership between local government and central government, what more can central government do? I think in terms of messages that are put out by MPs, by ministers, by departments, those are obviously critical; messages which actually value diversity and celebrate what we have - ie a patchwork of different communities - and how we can better work together. Those are critical. Q432 Chairman: Are government messages consistent and always right? Or does government sometimes get the messages wrong? Mr Singh: I think you have asked me that question some time ago; you probably do not remember. I think my answer is that it is a mixed bag actually. Government, as you know better than I do, is complex; it is not always possible in large, complex organisations such as government to keep up to speed with what some other part of government is doing so departments' policies and initiatives might knock into each other inadvertently. There is, I think, some room for improvement; sometimes messages are not consistent. As to the leadership and promotion issues, I think the work recently through the Community Cohesion Unit in the Home Office and spreading that across government departments and, I suppose, committee cohesion proofing initiatives is an important one and needs to be continued. The review of regeneration initiatives trying to streamline those initiatives and trying to take out some of the rules that are too prescriptive in my view and spotlight resources directly into neighbourhoods without allowing local influence are important things for government to do. Dr Khanum: I would like to say something on this because it is very important what local authority and national government do to enhance community relations and community cohesion. If you look at community cohesion as an expression it is almost a kind of code for deprivation - socio-economic deprivation - because you do not talk about community cohesion in rural areas where quite a lot of white people live. As soon as quite a lot of black and minority ethnic people live in a disadvantaged geographical area people talk about community cohesion. I think socio-economic deprivation and community cohesion go together in people's minds. Local authority and central government can tackle the specific socio-economic disadvantages which have been identified through research service and all that and if those are not tackled then I cannot believe that the alienation of the young people in particular which has happened to a large extent in the Muslim community and other communities will help community cohesion in the future because potentially it is a very dangerous situation. These are the young people in various minority ethnic communities who will be wage earners; some of them are looking for jobs and not getting satisfactory jobs because there is a lot of prejudice against them as well among employers. All of these things can be looked at and investment should be made within these voluntary sectors quite a lot to do capacity building and confidence building so that they feel loyal and integral to mainstream society rather than being on the margins of society. That investment is essential. I think joint work between local authorities and central government would be a good thing. Q433 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: Mr Tahir Khan, do you have money for your Youth League? Where does it come from? Mr Tahir Khan: Just like any voluntary organisation we are starved of funding. Probably about 95% of our funding comes from different charities and national sort of funding streams that are available. Q434 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: Would you like to get your hands on some central government money? Mr Tahir Khan: We have attempted to apply for some of the recent initiative that came about. I have forgotten the name of it but it was from the Home Office. We have not been successful and it is because of the strict requirements of that funding stream in terms of one of the criteria is more about SLA between the local authority and the voluntary sector. That SLA has to be on a new service delivery agreement which is very difficult to get together in a short space of time that very much demanded by the funding stream deadlines there. We have been successful in the past working with the local college of further education in terms of accessing some of the ICT funding that was coming from the DfES possibly which is where that funding stream came from and we have been successful in terms of working together with our local college in accessing that funding. With that funding we have been able to build up a resource within our centre and the facilities within our centre which provide training not just for Bangladeshis, it is called the Centre for Youth and Community Development to encourage more community cohesion, more diversity and encourage the communities from different racial backgrounds to take part in the activities. It is based in one of the most deprived parts of Luton which some of you may have heard of, it is made up of Biscot and Dallow electoral ward. As a result of our policy and strategy we have been successful in engaging people from the different ethnic communities and not just the Bangladeshi communities. At the moment our ICT and ESOL training courses are accessed by east European new migrant community in Luton. Chief Superintendent Twydell: We have talked a little bit about health inequalities; I think there is an issue about crime inequalities as well in a town like Luton in that Luton sits within the top quartile of the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partner areas - it is number 55 - but it is not within the top 40 which therefore qualifies for some additional funding and it is not a priority area. The Criminal Justice Agency as well as the other partners in the CDRP do not receive any additional funding but would support that in the way that those other top 40 areas do. For example, Crown Prosecution Service, courts, police have difficulties in trying to manage the volume of crime related work that we are actually dealing with going through the Criminal Justice System. There is an issue around targets and the targets set in process under PSA 1 for the target of 15% crime reduction between 2005/08 where we feel there has been a very prescriptive approach taken by the government offices where Luton is told that it is in the top quartile therefore we need to achieve a 21% reduction in crime but with no significant increase in resources to enable us to do so. I think we feel at the moment that we are being prescribed a target which we are not entirely confident as a partnership that we will have the resources to deliver on over the next three years. I think there is a role there for government in the way that those targets are negotiated with local areas. Q435 Mr Clappison: Could I ask Dr Khanum, who has just made some very interesting comments about social deprivation in Luton - as indeed you did in the memorandum which you submitted to the Committee where you specifically mentioned the two wards that I think Mr Khan has just mentioned Biscot and Dallow where there is a particular concentration of deprivation and unemployment amongst minority ethnic community members in those wards - and in your evidence a moment ago you drew a link between that level of unemployment and the feelings particularly of young people and their hopes for the future. Do you think enough progress has been made on this front and what more can be done? Dr Khanum: Progress is being made all the time; I would not say we are standing still in Luton at the moment. However, I think specific targeted and co-ordinated activities to make a difference to these people is needed and it is needed from schools, from colleges, from institutions, from workplace learning and by employers and by local authority public health and primary care trusts and all sorts of other services. Although we have this local strategic partnership which is bringing people together for the first time as it were they are looking at various pots of money together, I still do not feel that to be absolutely confidently working in a co-ordinated fashion has started yet. We have a long way to go to feel confident about each other and trustful about each other on the local strategic partnerships. When they do it then they can target the specific disadvantage of particularly young people who are growing up so that their education is first class, it is not really prejudiced education or under achievement is not rampant among them, it is tackled properly, and employment skills and employability among them is much higher than before. When all of these things have been targeted I believe that the other things will also disappear. For example, poor health and longevity, if you look at even the longevity of some communities it is lower than other people and you can immediately link it with economic deprivation. It is as clear as that. Unfortunately again amongst the Muslim community that sort of deprivation is concentrated in Luton. I think that plenty of work can be done. I have seen families where among five children four of them are chronically suffering from all sorts of illness which they should not be as a result of poor housing. That affects their education, their life chances and as future earning members of the town they already have barriers in front of them and they are not responsible for that. People who are responsible - the statutory bodies and the voluntary sector and private sector - should come together and do more than they are doing and central government has a role to play. On health we calculated that Luton has serious health inequalities between communities and just over £10 million can target the inequalities. There are a huge number of perinatal deaths amongst the Muslim community in particular because they are the most socio-economically deprived. To tackle all these things like diabetes, like chronic heart disease and so on and so forth, £10 million can immediately target these sorts of things and make the community up a bit. It is small change for central government but it will go a long way to immediately tackle the specific disadvantages and I do not see that happening. That is why I think a bit more is necessary. Q436 Mr Clappison: Could I pass on to a slightly different subject which was touched on earlier by Mr Zafar Khan. When you were being asked about the impact of 9/11 you mentioned work which faith groups have done together to try to build confidence in the community and ease any possible tensions. Can I ask you about the inter-faith dialogue which takes place in Luton, and particularly how confident you are that it reaches below the level of community leaders? Mr Zafar Khan: I think I am fairly confident because I consider myself below the level of community leaders. I think messages do get across and there are a number of things that we do together on a regular basis, for example we have a standing joke: we make a spectacle of ourselves every year round about the end of September/early October and we call it a Faithgrimage and every year we start off from one place of worship and visit a number of places of worship. For example, we start off in the central mosque and we visit the various churches (we used to visit synagogues but unfortunately there is no longer a synagogue because the Jewish community has really dwindled; although we have representation from the Jewish community on the Luton Council of Faiths, they meet in private homes now) and we end up in the gurdwara. The other activities would include evenings and special programmes. I suppose we could do a lot more, but coming back to your question, we are only funded to the tune of 5%, no 50, point 5 and the faith worker is really a part time faith worker. At the moment he is the only one who is static, others are voluntary people and are happy to be voluntary. I suppose that is one area where we could improve and make the faith worker a full-time worker. When we were setting this up way back in the late 1990s the danger there was that we did not want to be anybody's poodle, if you like; we want to be an independent organisation and our idea is that independent organisations getting into partnerships whether it is with local authority, whether it is with other statutory agencies, when they are equals in partnership they are not beholden to anyone. When we were making initial inroads enlisting support of the local authority in this area, this was quite clearly what I put to the then leader of the council who was very helpful and very insightful about the efficacy and importance of this area of work, and we were saying, "Look, even if you fund us to a tune of 100% of the salary of the faith worker, nothing else, we will still act independently. We would not want to be stifled." Coming back to your question, I think a lot needs to be done but we are doing as much I think as is possible for all of us and people are giving their facilities, churches, mosques. Q437 Mr Clappison: More people can go into different people's places of worship. Mr Zafar Khan: Yes, of course and it helps enormously. Q438 Mr Clappison: You have mentioned that there are within the minority ethnic communities in Luton differences in faith and also in background, are you aware of any tensions between different groups within the minority ethnic community? Mr Zafar Khan: There are always undercurrents, yes. The Superintendent mentioned a newspaper report and there was another newspaper report which purported to say something about the Sikh community and came from some anonymous Muslim group. That caused a furore. In fact, we took the bull by the horns and I called a press conference and I called it right in the Sikh gurdwara. The first press conference failed because there were some hotheads but we stood our ground and we had a second press conference there. We had a number of meetings in the gurdwara and said, "Right, this is our community; we live here and we are going to live here for many, many, many generations and we have to come to terms with solving our problems". We had successive meetings in the gurdwara and finally, fortunately, we resolved the issue and we also ensured that in future if such events occurred we, as a collective, are able to confront it. I think there are always tensions but these are tensions between people who understand that we may have different ideas but we have an ultimate objective which is similar. We set out various dialogue groups within the overall ambit of the Luton Council of Faiths, a dialogue between the Christians and Muslims and Sikhs and so on. Everybody is represented on the Faith Council. Q439 Mr Clappison: There is also the question of extremism which can be a problem in any community. Is that something you are aware of as well? Mr Zafar Khan: I think colleagues here have touched on the media interest, recent events, the summer of discontent and the consequences, and how we were able to actually ensure that nothing similar happened in Luton although similar issues, problems and debates were very much current in Luton. Extremism by nature is around very few individuals or groups who are very loud mouthed, and there are people out there, particularly in the media, who want to exploit that or maybe in the political arena who want to exploit that like the BNP who have done it in Burnley and in other places and fortunately thus far in Luton we have not been inflicted with their venomous approach to destabilising the social fabric of our society. On the whole, as a community, I think we are robust enough both in terms of the statutory sector as well as the community informal sector, and we are working together to ensure that we are capable of combating any eventuality but of course this is not a rosy picture that I am painting, I am saying that there are real problems but we have to work together. Coming back to local and central government relationships, I think central government has the power and the authority to do things that the local government does not, but the local government in this context has the experience - perhaps not as much as I would personally want - the capacity and the willingness to interface by nature in the definition of its existence with the local communities and I think that is where a lot of good work has to take place. Central government can actually play a role in involving the local government and local communities to bring that about. For me, change has to happen in local communities. Q440 Mr Clappison: Your comments have been eliciting a fair amount of support amongst your fellow witnesses. Does anybody have anything to add on that subject? Dr Khanum: I would like to say something about the role of central government in looking at how community cohesion can be promoted and extremism can be tackled at a very early stage. If you look at the curriculum delivery in school by people who are delivering it and what kind of curriculum they are delivering and what kind of training these teachers get in their own training courses to cope with or to deal with situations where they can instil a sense of value for diversity among the learners, not just tolerance, but to develop respect for each other. I think we have a long way to go there because central government can find out quite easily through the Education Department as to how the training is delivered to these teachers. Are they prepared to deal with these issues in the classroom? My perception is that it is still not happening the way it should so when children grow up without knowing about diversity and the value of diversity then we cannot expect that some of them will not turn into extremism through a variety of external or internal instances and so on and so forth. Q441 Mr Clappison: Do you mean for people to have a better understanding of one another's backgrounds and faiths so that there can be no misunderstanding in the minds of other people. Dr Khanum: Absolutely. The rural schools in this country and some of the public schools if you look at them, I do not really believe these students are prepared to be citizens of a country which is so diverse because the curriculum does not touch them basically. I think we must do something about it. Mr Zafar Khan: Just to support what Nazia is saying, we are here today on the 10th of February 2005; this is where we are; this is Britain; this is Luton; this is where we have to take it. That is the point where we have to take it and accept that this is our society whatever diversity, whatever differences - black people, brown people, Muslims, Hindus or whatever religion, white people - this is who we are and this is what we are and we have to make it work. There is no "us" and "them" here. That is what one would like to actually project: we are here; nobody is a foreigner; we all have a common destiny. Okay, there is diversity and that diversity should be the icing on the cake so let us work from here, the 10th of February. Q442 Chairman: Within this country there are obviously - you have just acknowledged that - some extremists. How do you think that should be dealt with? There have been arrests in Luton; I do not know whether they have led to charges or not. If you are in a situation where the great majority of the community is as you have described, striving for this common purpose but within a community there are some extremists, how do you handle that in terms of dealing with that problem but not upsetting the issues that we want to bring the majority together on? Mr Zafar Khan: A simple, short answer would be to work with the communities and I think to provide or help to create an effective leadership in the community. I think people that I have experience of, they are all against terrorism, they are all against destruction; they may have very strong views about Iraq or Palestine or Kashmir or whatever, but they are against violence, they are against terrorism, their interest lies in seeing that their children graduate, they get jobs and all the deprivation that Nazia has talked about is no longer there. People need strong leadership and I think both local and central government need to work with the communities. There is sufficient opinion against the kinds of people that the Government is acting against - whether it is after 9/11 or even before 9/11 - because, you know, this is not a new thing; 9/11 added a sort of dimension to it. I think the communities are part and parcel of this whole process. I am not knocking the leadership that we have but as a Muslim/British/Pakistani/Kashmiri person I think I would like to see effective leadership given to my community and there are many people who could be effective leaders but it is actually empowering them, and that is what government at all levels can do. Mr Singh: One of the things, it seems to me, that we do need to do is to attack some of the causes of disaffection, some of the drivers which may well promote recruit campaigns by extremist organisations. One of the key points is tackling the causes of deprivation. Q443 Chairman: Can I just challenge you on that point? Most of the British citizens who have been involved in terrorist activities that we know of in this country have not come from the most deprived backgrounds. Most have been highly educated or at least well educated, often from successful families and, indeed, in or two publicised cases, privately educated. Can you actually make the link that you have just made? Mr Singh: Not precisely on that point but it seems to me that within the education system one of the problems we do have is actually how to promote a greater cross-cultural contact and I think that is a challenge for our education system. Chairman: That sets us up nicely fro Mr Russell's questions, so could we move on. Q444 Bob Russell: I would like to commend Luton for its Sticking Together report which I think is an excellent document. Modestly it says that Luton is unique. That said, I would suggest that it ought to be widely circulated among other communities which may well benefit in part or in full from some of the things you mention. I would like to come in on the school side and on pages 17 and 18 of Sticking Together that is dealt with at some length. There is one phrase there which did cause me some concern. Generally the view was that faith schools increased separation between communities. Dr Khanum, in you submission, put forward the observation that some schools are de facto segregated with an overwhelming majority from the Asian community. This is not desirable in such a diverse town, where people have to learn to live with difference. What role can schools play in promoting community cohesion? Dr Khanum: I personally think it is not desirable but it happens for a variety of reasons because if you look at the catchment areas where quite a lot of these communities live they would automatically come to faith schools. Because of parental choice - which is a government policy - many parents from the white communities and some affluent other communities may decide that their children will not go to that school because quite a lot of socio-economically deprived children will be going there. They take their children away to another school so as a result what you see is a kind of presence of a particular community in a school which I think is not desirable but it is a fact and we have to live with it because social engineering cannot be done unless a co-class system is developed which is not going to be developed I am sure. If you look at the rural schools five minutes' drive from Luton in Bedfordshire, most of these schools are all white, segregated in that sense. Nobody there will talk about how desirable for these students it will be to be to come later on in their lives to do work in a workplace which is probably multi-cultural. Q445 Bob Russell: In effect parents are creating some of the segregated schools by their own decision of parental choice. Dr Khanum: Because choice has been given to them by the authority, by government. Q446 Bob Russell: Would you like to see some sort of bussing arrangements, as mentioned in the report? Mr Singh: My personal feeling on that is no because I think that could have a very detrimental impact on community relations. The two big drivers in terms of school population are catchment areas which are driven by patterns of settlement. There are complex reasons why people move into certain parts of towns and cities. Secondly, parental choice is a very popular policy for parents across different ethnic backgrounds and I think it is a very important one. Schools can do a lot of things, though. One of the issues is in the curriculum and what is taught in schools, how to use the curriculum and the content of the curriculum to broaden knowledge about different cultures and different religions and to get a better understanding of the population within Luton and also other towns and cities. I think the second area is the approach to partnering and twinning within schools. We have three secondary schools out of twelve where the population is 90% plus from Asian and BME communities. Our overall population is 44% of our school population at the moment is from BME communities so that is quite a significant challenge for us to twin around subject areas. We are looking now at using vocational teaching and creating a cluster of schools where different schools specialise in different vocational curricula and get children and young people to engage with each other. I think that is quite an important approach. Q447 Bob Russell: How far have the schools got in achieving that or have they already reached that situation where we have in Luton community cohesion being promoted by schools and it cannot get any better? Or is there a long way to go? Where are we on the ladder? Mr Singh: I do not want to devalue the good work of teachers who do a really great job, but there is always more to be done. We are not complacent at all. I think there are places where we do have an issue - and Dr Khanum picked them up in her memorandum - is around the role models within schools: 10.5% of teachers are from BME communities; 22% of the BME population is economically active so there is an issue. Q448 Bob Russell: We have discussed one side of the coin, the positive side towards promoting community cohesion; can I now ask you what are the problems created by these mono-ethnic schools or those where a large majority or pupils are from one ethnic or religious background? Is there a negative side? Dr Khanum: I am not a particularly negative person but I would probably give you a negative side of this. The negative side is that in those schools the majority of teaching staff are probably from the white community so although, say, black minority ethnic learners are the majority predominantly there they do not see their role models in a position of power or authority. They have a very twisted sort of impression about their own future as well because they do not feel inspired about their own future. To improve self-esteem and to improve aspirations - because aspirational level sometimes is low in certain communities for a variety of reasons, socio-economic deprivation and so on - we have to have role models of all these communities in the teaching staff as well. That has to happen. The other thing is that suddenly after those schools when they go into colleges which are more diverse they may find it difficult because they do not have the experience of mixing with other communities and suddenly there is a different world in the further education sector. So some of these people are not prepared or made prepared to enter that world of multi-culturalism from schools. I think again it depends on so much. It depends on the quality of leadership and management of those schools because if the head teachers are dynamic head teachers who understand the value of diversity and the perspective of Luton and the country as a whole, they will teach these children in a way that they would be prepared for a multi-cultural society and be responsible citizens of that society. I think it very much depends on the teaching side and the leadership and management of schools. Q449 Bob Russell: So the school report is that progress is being made but more needs to be done. Dr Khanum: Far more needs to be done. Q450 Bob Russell: Luton has a very successful professional football club. What involvement does that club play in racial and community relations and does it reflect the Luton community that you represent here today? Mr Singh: I do not have any specific figures to hand, information around the support and so on. The ground for the football club is based at Kenilworth Road is right at the centre of Bury Park so right in the centre of the Dallow and Biscot area. We have been talking to them over the years about putting back into the community programmes for example kicking racism out of football which is excellent, and also promoting community use of the ground. I accept that we need to do more work with the club. We are actually looking forward to relocating the club to a different part of the town and that will give us a really good opportunity to tackle some of the poor housing conditions that have been referred to in that particular area and also further activate and promote better community engagement. Q451 Chairman: Tahir Khan, this problem that you have identified in your note of young Bangladeshis who are British born not identifying with being Bangladeshi in the way that their parents or grandparents might have done as first generation immigrants and do not feel entirely British but do, I understand, have an identity with Luton but otherwise identities are confused. What should be done locally and nationally to help that group of young Bangladeshis to have an identity which respects their culture and background but nonetheless enables them to say they are unambiguously British? Mr Tahir Khan: I think some of this has been touched on by other colleagues in terms of the education for example and I think the education system would play an important role in order to address some of those issues, for example one particular minority group attending one school. One of the problems that Dr Khanum has touched on is that that does not give those young people the opportunity to integrate with young people from other ethnic communities. That would help if we were able to create that environment from the school level. I think it is important for people to identify themselves with their ancestral origins. It is a positive thing; I do not think it is a negative thing. Some media play on it in a negative way. As an organisation we try to encourage that in our programme in terms of being a responsible citizen in this country and how to lead an inclusive life in this society here. Something else I would like to bring in here is how the young Bangladeshis are accepted by their peers from the other ethnic backgrounds is an issue. The educational system would have a key role to play in terms of addressing some of the issues around respecting different cultures and so on and how people feel they are accepted by their peers and by the system and by society at large. Q452 Chairman: The Ted Cantle report on community cohesion has been referred to several times and in it he recommended that there should be organised debates at both national level and local level about what it meant to be British in the 21st century and what sort of identity people had. Have those types of debates been attempted in Luton? Is that recommendation something that should be pushed by central government? Mr Tahir Khan: To my knowledge I do not think it has been attempted in Luton. Dr Khanum: When the Sticking Together document was produced massive consultation took place with community groups as well as the local authority elected members of the council and so on and so forth. Identity was one of the important topics that were discussed. At the moment there is no current debate but I know that at various levels we do discuss it. Only a couple of years ago I carried out some research on the young Bangladeshi women and their aspirations. I carried out this research in Luton. Identity again was part of that research and how they identified themselves. To my utter surprise at that point - three years ago, before 9/11 - quite a lot of young Bangladeshi women identified themselves as Muslim. That was a surprise to me because their parents identified themselves as Bangladeshi. It was surprising. They told me that they would not like to be called Asians although other people identified them as Asians because Asian is a very generic term within which there are so many communities. It would be like to call an English person or a Scottish person European; European is another identity but of course under that there is another identity. Many of them told me that if asked about whether they were bothered about identity, these young people said, "Why do you bother about identify? We have multiple identity and according to mood and circumstance we call ourselves Bangladeshi, British, Muslim or Lutonian or whatever." Q453 Chairman: In Mr Khan's evidence he identifies this as a problem, not just as a description. He says it is a lack of confidence in identity. You seem to be suggesting that there is not a problem, that people are comfortable. Dr Khanum: They surprised me because that was not my perception. My understanding and perception was that this is a kind of crisis that some people are going through as to who they are, what they are, are they really Pakistani, Bangladeshi, British, Asian or European (which has not happened yet, but that is another debate). There is no doubt in those young people's minds who I actually contacted and researched with: they were Lutonian. Mr Singh: This is a very complex area as you know better than I do, but what we have been doing since the Sticking Together report is not to encourage or engage in debates around identity because actually how do you really grab hold of that issue and make a difference? The challenge for the council and the main statutory agencies is how do you mainstream work around community cohesion and I think we have a great opportunity around the Every Child Matters and the Children and Young People's Agenda to actually talk to children and young people around some specifics about what is important to them and what are their priorities are. We can tackle some of the broader issues you touched on today around health, for example, crime and education attainment, and focus and make sure that as part of that process we involve people from a variety of different ethnic backgrounds. One final comment from me on this is that local authorities every three years, as you know, have to do a best value survey and all the questions are prescribed. One question we asked was the extent to which the respondents - that is Luton residents - believed they belonged to Luton. For those in the population who described themselves as white 57.8% said they belonged to Luton; from black and minority ethnic communities the statistic was 79.6%. We have not actually got underneath that yet but it is a powerful statistic. The response to the question about the extent to which the respondent believes he belongs to England for the white population was 85.4%; and interestingly for the BME population 75%. The margin is not as big, but it is switched the other way round. The extent to which the respondent feels he belongs to Britain for the white population 80% and for the BME population 75%. There is something interesting happening there about identification with Luton and this is people of all ages obviously. Q454 Chairman: The levels of identify in the minority community - particularly England - is higher than one might have expected because it is often said that there is an acceptance of a British identity but less so of the national identity. It would be very helpful if you could let us have copies of that. Mr Singh: I will e-mail it to you. Q455 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: I have two small questions really. First of all, the composition of the PCT. In the papers here the Bangladeshi representation on the council is there a reasonable balance of individuals of the PCT who are there to represent the interests of the black and Asian communities? Dr Khanum: No. If you look at the local council at the moment we do not have any Bangladeshi councillors there although they are a very sizeable community in Luton. If you look at the female representation from the Asian community on the council at the moment it is nil as well. Again, the Asian community is a very large community. On the PCT board I am on that board so you can say that a Bangladeshi woman is there on that board. There are two Indian people there (the chairman is Indian) and there is one African-Caribbean and the others are white. It is slightly better balanced there than on the council. Obviously there is a lot we need to achieve to have diversity reflecting the community's diversity in Luton on various public bodies. Q456 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: Is the local authority in receipt of the Children's Fund? Mr Singh: Yes. On the council make-up, out of 47 councillors - 48 seats, we have one vacancy at the moment - 27.7% are black and Asian. Q457 Chairman: On the question of the Bengali community, is the issue there that members of the Bangladeshi community do not join the political parties or the political parties do not select them as candidates or, if they do, people do not vote for them? Ultimately these things have to be resolved through a democratic process. Which of those would it be, do you know? There was an interesting comment in your evidence saying that the local authority should tackle the problem but in a sense the people should. Mr Singh: Unfortunately I cannot comment. Q458 Chairman: Of course you cannot. Mr Khan? Mr Zafar Khan: I think on balance the minority communities in Luton are reasonably politicised and I think on balance also the Bangladeshi community is just as political as the Pakistani or the Afro-Caribbean or the Kashmiri community. Chairman: That was a kind of side note to end on, but can I thank you very much indeed. You will remember in the Ted Cantle report he did stress that the quality of local leadership was critical in dealing with many of these issues and I think you have shown that to us this morning. |