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12 Mar 2009 : Column 153WH—continued
2.55 pm
Lynne Featherstone (Hornsey and Wood Green) (LD): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Bayley. I, too, welcome this debate. There remains a very real, and sometimes radical, divide in our country. It is clear that there is a need for a future strategy for race equality. One statistic brings that into sharp contrast. The Office for National Statistics shows that in 2005, infant mortality among Pakistani and Caribbean groups was double that of British white children. Therefore, there is health inequality. The Minister referred to the disproportionateness of police stop and search. Such a policy has resulted in more than a third of the black and ethnic minority population being on the DNA database. If there is no evidence of such criminality, most of those on the DNA database would be innocent. Therefore, will the Minister tell us whether the DNA that is taken from those who are found to be innocent could be destroyed?
The level of disparity that remains in this country should set alarm bells ringing. As the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) said, racial inequality is compounded by deprivation and results in tensions and flash points. A few years ago, we saw what happened when France and Holland buried their heads in the sand. Race riots were sparked by the incendiary devices of neglect, inequality and segregation. It is much better to confront and address such challenges before we are at real risk of internecine strife or the hideous bile of the far right. There is no doubt that in an economic downturn, the far right will be looking to exploit and play upon people’s fears. Therefore, if we want a better future, we must reduce the chasms that separate us all and reduce that which divides.
We must address the three issues that divide us—there are more, but I will limit myself to three for today. First, there is a divide between the “already heres” and the newcomers. I am not necessarily talking about black against white, but those races who are already here
versus those races who are newly arrived. I speak from my experience in my constituency of Hornsey and Wood Green, which is hugely ethnically diverse. It is a phenomenal place in which to work. I feel privileged to be its Member of Parliament.
In my surgeries, I hear people say, “It’s not fair because immigrants and asylum seekers get the houses first.” They often tell me about someone they know down the road who has jumped the queue. However, they never give me any evidence because they are too frightened. Whether such behaviour is true or whether it is perceived, it builds tension, thereby allowing the far right to make inroads into that community. Moreover, it leads to the very deep and unresolved schism of need versus entitlement which hinders the allocation of scarce public resources. We must address those issues around the holy grail of need head-on to balance it more fairly with the entitlements of the “already heres”.
Such a problem is most acute when it comes to housing allocation. Housing in Haringey is in very short supply. We are a welcoming borough with a range of different communities—we would be here all day if I listed them—and, not unnaturally, people’s relatives and friends come to an area in which there is an existing community. Therefore, the pressure on housing in Haringey is acute. I will be interested to hear what the Minister thinks about that.
We need an absolutely fair system of allocation that addresses the clash of need against entitlement. Not only does the system need to be fair, it needs to be seen to be fair, so it needs to be published and audited. Right now, housing allocation rules are often obscure and unpublicised, which feeds rumours and hatred. For people to understand and agree with the fairness of the system, there needs to be participation in the decisions on the process and system in the first place. We need equality of who gets what, why and where in housing allocation. People need to see it and agree to it so that the BNP cannot work up the hatreds that are so easy to prey upon when there is a fight over scarce public resources.
Secondly, we need to address segregation when it becomes extreme or hostile to communities. Communities can become separate from, and almost non-participatory in, the more general life of the country. In that regard, we need to address schooling. The common parental preference is for a school where the majority of pupils match the ethnicity or race of their own child. In some ways, that is only natural, but it almost certainly exacerbates segregation, unless counter-mechanisms are introduced. Lord knows, that that is a difficult road to go down.
As recently as last week, on the day parents throughout the country found out whether their children had secured a place at the secondary school of their choice, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families ordered a review into the allocation lottery for school places. No party in the House has reached a consensus on school place allocation lotteries. They have obvious pitfalls and are not necessarily the answer. As a Liberal Democrat, I think that a local school is the answer, but the fact that people can afford houses near a local school in, say, Muswell Hill means that that school’s catchment will have an advantage that children elsewhere might not have.
The Liberal Democrats’ new policy is to give a child who faces deprivation and challenges, which often means ethnic minority children, a package of money. We call it
the pupil premium. The package goes with the child, so the school that accepts them will have the resources to meet their needs above and beyond what is normal. We would also cut infant class sizes to the same number as private schools to give children the same opportunities. In a way, we need an intensification of resources where the challenges are greater.
Of course, a lot of softer measures are available. Sport is often talked about in terms of integration and it is a fantastic way of bringing communities together, but we need to think much more widely, which could mean twinning towns with middle east towns rather than French towns, having schools of different faiths that share common facilities and work together, and looking at what history we teach. It could be time for more Suleiman the Great and less Napoleon, but I could not possibly comment on that.
The third of the great divides that we have to tackle was referred to by the hon. Member for Wycombe. We need to bridge the discrimination against, and fear of, Muslims, which are greater than for any other group. So much damage has been done to the image of Muslims by the reporting of news from overseas of so-called Islamic terrorists. However, when those who are fighting the terrorists, or the victims of their terrorism, are also Muslim, it goes unmentioned by the media. The drip-drip effect of linking the words “Muslim” and “terrorism”, but not linking the words “victim” with “Muslim” in the same way, is pernicious.
Mr. Goodman: Does the hon. Lady agree, given that we have a debate once a year on anti-Semitism, that the time may well have come to give serious consideration to having a debate in Government time on Islamophobia?
Lynne Featherstone: Yes, that is very good idea. The more we can bring up these issues, the better. To be fair, the Government have done a great deal of work on integration and work to tackle extremism in communities. A lot of work is being done by Muslim anti-terrorism groups. I go to our Mosque in Wightman road and meet swathes of young Muslims. They have a variety of views, but the thing is to go in there and engage in the debate and not to be separate and avoid touching it. Such debate in Parliament would be a very good idea.
I just touched on the language problem—I said that it is pernicious—and I would love the Minister to address it. I have not come up with a solution that would attract the media to my cause, but the coverage I talked about builds a grossly unfair image. Jewish people in this country are feeling very vulnerable because of what is happening in the middle east, and all our communities need to be protected from over-zealousness, pejorative description and other such things. A lot of work is done in Haringey across the faiths, races and cultures. After 7/7, we were pleased that there was not a single incident against anyone because of that work. However, it is not easy. A number of rising tensions need to be addressed.
Part of the solution is always to be firm in our values. We live in a democracy. No group—Muslims, Jews, Christians or anyone else—has a right to express disagreement with a democratically elected Government by any means other than peaceful protest or political campaigning within the law. That is a non-negotiable first principle for everyone who lives in this country.
Any strategy for future race equality must involve improved communications; funding initiatives and schemes that encourage communities together, meaning the end of separate funding or looking at the effect that such funding has; locally negotiated compromises and fairness and transparency in the allocation of scarce public resources; reduction in health and education inequalities; the use of politics as a uniting rather than a dividing force; a more realistic understanding of the negative impact of our foreign policy, which has huge repercussions in this country; and a greater degree of mutual understanding and cultural awareness.
Like the Minister, I cannot discuss race without mentioning the forthcoming equality Bill—I am not sure when it will come forth—which represents an opportunity to address race inequality. The Liberal Democrats are slightly concerned at the tone of the debate, which involves Lord Mandelson, ahead of the Bill. He seems to be indicating, by smoke signals, that he is the friend of business, and business is undoubtedly a prime concern during an economic downturn. However, the trade press and the right-leaning press have been littered with scare stories vilifying the Bill. The tiny bit of the Bill on positive action, which would allow an employer, when all other things are equal and if applicants are equally qualified, to choose the applicant who balances the work force and, for instance, employ a male or black teacher, is such a no-brainer. That happens anyway with those who wish to balance the work force. It is enabling, not forcing, but one would think, reading the tabloid press, that the world had ended because of that small, very good suggestion from the Government. There are a lot of scare stories vilifying the Bill, with Lord Mandelson stepping in to save business. However, I cannot stress strongly enough that to pit equality against the needs of the economy is a completely false dichotomy. The needs of those who face discrimination do not stop where the needs of British business begin.
As social problems go, race discrimination is pretty well documented. Hon. Members are right that there is a view that closing the equality gap will be as much an advantage in some other strands of inequality as anything else. The widening equality gap ultimately makes it harder to right wrongs. In fact, we could end up pouring endless amounts of money in at one end of the spectrum, which those who are paying in but getting nothing out would resent. What we see across Europe is that narrowing the equality gap makes things better for all citizens, wherever they are on the spectrum. That is an important change in the way in which we see inequality and racial inequality. Whichever measurement we choose, however, there are relatively few areas where not being white puts people on top.
When it comes to tackling the issues raised in the equality Bill, my suspicion is that Ministers’ hearts are totally in the right place, but effective measures and changes need to be implemented. I therefore look forward to the Bill’s introduction.
3.10 pm
Mr. Eric Joyce (Falkirk) (Lab): In following on from the excellent speech by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), I am being a bit opportunistic because I just want to make a quick point that I had hoped to make in an intervention.
For a short period between a previous job and coming to this place, I worked for the Commission for Racial Equality. Part of my job involved funding race equality councils across Scotland. It was always a problem to disentangle genuine racial equality issues from local political issues and all sorts of other issues that can embed themselves in any locally funded body. Sometimes, different minority ethnic groups were trying to seize control of a body; at other times, there would be different imperatives, and everybody involved in racial equality issues is pretty clear about all that.
The events of a couple of days ago were interesting. Some people protested very loudly when a battalion that had just returned from Iraq marched through their town. From the media coverage—I do not blame the media for this—it was easy to get the impression that this was essentially a racial equality issue, but that was to misunderstand and conflate two quite separate things. One was to do with racial equality, which is a live issue for all parties, and certainly for the Government. The other was to do with political dissent and with people’s right to voice a view, although these particular individuals unwisely chose to capitalise on the likely coverage by taking an extreme position.
The important point, however, is that there was some response in the media from some pretty good individuals, who felt it necessary to defend people’s right to make extreme statements in the free society in which we live. However, they did so from the perspective of racial equality, reflecting the nature of bodies that they directed or were chief executive of. It is important to say that the people who run race equality councils and other bodies that the Home Office still helps to fund, which are well-meaning and often very effective, although that can vary, sometimes have to keep certain local groupings happy while pursuing a race equality agenda in their areas. For the past couple of days in the media, there has been some misunderstanding of those two roles, which are easily conflated.
I simply wanted to make the point that the protest was bad, ill-advised and designed to get in the public eye. The fact that these guys happened to be from a minority ethnic group was largely irrelevant from the racial equality perspective. The protest was entirely a matter of political dissent. Although most people in this place understand that point, it is important to make it clear.
3.13 pm
Mr. Khan: I thank all the hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. One problem with the hon. Members for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) is that they speak sense so much of the time. Ministers come prepared for a ding-dong, but the hon. Members disappoint us by being so reasonable and making so many good points. Let me deal with some of those that they have raised.
The hon. Gentleman talked about his experiences as a constituency MP and about the huge contribution that his minority communities have made to his views. In particular, he made an important point—I use my words rather than his—when he queried whether faith
was the new race in terms of people’s experiences and how people define themselves. He also touched on the challenges facing Britons of Muslim faith.
The hon. Gentleman went on to talk about multiculturalism, but it means different things to different people. When we analyse what Trevor Phillips and George Alagiah have said, we must ask ourselves how they define multiculturalism before they knock it down—it is the straw man argument.
When I visited the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will next week, I was impressed by the inter-faith work that was going on. What was remarkable, although not for those of us involved in this line of work, was the fact that majority communities and members of other faiths were putting out the hand of friendship and helping minority communities of Muslim faith to feel empowered and confident enough to raise their concerns. That inter-faith work is analogous to the best of the inter-racial work that went on in the previous life of my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Mr. Joyce), when he dealt with the CRE and the RECs.
The hon. Gentleman said that raising life chances was the key, and I could not agree more. The discussions that took place following the publication of the White Paper and in the days and weeks leading up to the publication of the equality Bill were about raising life chances, and that has been the cornerstone of what the Government have been about for the past 12 years.
The hon. Gentleman quoted Trevor Phillips as saying that the UK is the best place to live if someone is non-white, and I would endorse and, indeed, extend that. I try to be a practising Muslim. I was born and raised in the UK and have lived here all my life. I often travel overseas and meet Muslims from other countries and of other nationalities. I would go so far as to say that, as a Muslim who seeks to practise his religion, I can think of no other place where I would rather practise it. People here have the ability to go to a place of worship and pray in a congregation; to bury a loved one following Islamic rites of passage; to eat food that reflects their faith; to wear the clothes that they choose to wear, whether they are a woman or a man; and to show political dissent—my hon. Friend referred to the right to protest, but that right is not enjoyed by many Muslim citizens of other countries. I therefore echo and extend the words of Trevor Phillips.
I was pleased when the hon. Gentleman spoke of the need to attack deprivation, because that view has been the cornerstone of many of the policies that the Government have pushed over the past 12 years and which we will push in the next period.
The hon. Gentleman used the phrase “forgotten communities”. Although he was not using it in this way, it is, as he said, often used by the far right to whip up a frenzy, and the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green also touched on that. However, if the hon. Gentleman analyses Government policies over the past 12 years, such as Sure Start, our investment in state schools and children’s centres, neighbourhood renewal, tax credits for working parents, the minimum wage and the steps that we have taken to deal with public health issues such as obesity, smoking cessation and sexually transmitted diseases, he will see that they have indirectly targeted and helped those so-called forgotten communities. I therefore do not accept that those communities have
been forgotten. We have taken many steps to deal with some of the problems and challenges that they face in ordinary life.
The hon. Gentleman made a good point about the importance of English. We should not be scared of saying that English is a crucial part of the social ladder and that one needs to be on top of the language if one wants to climb that ladder. People simply cannot speak to their neighbours, do well at school, ask questions of their children’s teachers, get involved in the governing body or the parent-teacher association at their children’s school, progress at work or get a job in the first place if they cannot speak the language. It is therefore important that we do not shy away from recognising the importance of English.
The hon. Gentleman went on to talk about the single group funding debate. He will be aware of the legal challenge brought by Southall Black Sisters against Ealing council, which was supported by the Government. Our policy on single group funding is clear: central Government will not dictate what should and should not be funded at local level. Each place will be different and have different needs. Clearly, there will still be a need for centres that provide specific services to local and minority communities, and that could include women. There are examples of great projects across the country, and it is for local communities to make decisions about such projects. We hope that funders—that means local councils—will take a measured approach, drawing on their knowledge of what happens in their neighbourhoods when they distribute funding. We hope that they will acknowledge the needs of groups that require single group funding, while bearing in mind the need to promote meaningful interaction. We will also ask that funding decisions be communicated effectively to the wider community, to mitigate the risk of myths developing. That was a key point arising from the tenor of the hon. Gentleman’s remarks.
In relation to the excellent work being done on social justice, in which members of both major parties are involved, and the importance of early intervention, I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. That is one reason why we have been obsessed with Sure Start, parenting skills and all the other things that help people to become better parents and benefit society in the longer term. A cost-benefit analysis of early intervention shows that there are benefits; but they do not appear for a generation. If we intervene early for the child, the reduction in antisocial behaviour and the improvement in educational attainment will not be apparent for 15 or 16 years at least.
The hon. Lady also made an excellent speech. Her comments about the DNA database are noted. She will of course be aware of the recent case in the European Court of Human Rights and the fact that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is looking into its implications, so I shall not comment on it. Her speech had three themes, the first of which was about those who are already here versus new arrivals—the “it’s not fair” argument. There are two points I want to make about that: first, we need to bust the myths. There are a lot of myths out there and we need to deal with them. Many people have genuine concerns because of things they have been told, which are perpetuated.
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