Formal Minutes
Wednesday 18 May 2016
Members present:
Keith Vaz, in the Chair
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Victoria Atkins James Berry Mr David Burrowes Nusrat Ghani |
Mr Ranil Jayawardena Stuart C McDonald Mr David Winnick |
Draft Report (Police diversity), proposed by the Chair, brought up and read.
Ordered, That the draft Report be read a second time, paragraph by paragraph.
Paragraphs 1 to 42 read and agreed to.
Paragraph 43 read as follows:
The Home Secretary has argued that it would be too difficult and too lengthy a process to seek a derogation from the EU to allow positive discrimination in BME recruitment to the police service, and that other options should therefore be exhausted first. We are not convinced that this is necessarily the case. Seventeen years on from the publication of the Macpherson report, BME representation remains poor and in senior police roles it is at a pitiful level; and many police forces seem to have no better grasp of how to increase diversity than they did decades ago. Most of the other options to increase recruitment and progression of BME police officers have already been tried, with only limited success. It may therefore be necessary for the police service to take further positive action, if the other measures which we propose in this report do not bear fruit sufficiently quickly.
Amendment proposed in line 4 to leave out from “first” to “Seventeen” and to insert “However,”.—(Mr Ranil Jayawardena.)
Question proposed, That the Amendment be made.
The Committee divided.
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Ayes, 5 Victoria Atkins James Berry Mr David Burrowes Nusrat Ghani Mr Ranil Jayawardena |
Noes, 2 Stuart C. McDonald Mr David Winnick |
Amendment agreed to.
Further amendment proposed, in line 4 to leave out from “that” to “Seventeen” and to insert:
“it would be as difficult or lengthy a process as the Home Secretary says it would be to obtain a derogation from the EU to allow positive discrimination in BME recruitment to the police service. We believe it may be necessary to introduce positive discrimination, if progress towards increasing BME representation in the police service is not achieved more rapidly than is currently the case. If so, this will require the process for seeking the EU derogation to be put in train.”—(Mr David Winnick.)
The Committee divided.
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Ayes, 2 Stuart C. McDonald Mr David Winnick |
Noes, 5 Victoria Atkins James Berry Mr David Burrowes Nusrat Ghani Mr Ranil Jayawardena |
Amendment disagreed to.
Paragraph 43, as amended, agreed to.
Paragraphs 44 to 51 read and agreed to.
Annex agreed to.
Resolved, That the Report be the First Report of the Committee to the House.
Ordered, That the Chair make the Report to the House.
Ordered, That embargoed copies of the Report be made available, in accordance with the provisions of Standing Order No. 134.
[Adjourned till Tuesday 24 May at 2.00 pm.
© Parliamentary copyright 2015
19 May 2016