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Baroness Whitaker: My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord, but does he accept that the report nowhere advocates quotas--that is, positive discrimination--but targets, that is, aiming at a balance.
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I accept the comment of the noble Baroness. Thank you.
If minority groups are to be over-represented, as the 30 per cent target suggests, it will be difficult to fit us English in.
I note that the report specifically recommends that the Irish community should be included in such positive discrimination. This is in respect of health service bodies. All I would say is that the Irish have been established in this country in numbers since the famine 160 years ago. They are usually not in communities. The Anglo-Irish relationship at personal level is a pleasant fact of life. The suggestion that, after this period, they should be the subject of positive discrimination, I find frankly patronising.
My noble friend Lady Flather referred to the concept of Britishness, which the report deplores. In my view, that is evidence of the nanny state attitude. You are not allowed to use a perfectly acceptable word in the English language because, in the mouths of some, it has racist overtones. While there are manifestations of this in certain aspects of government policy elsewhere, which we deplore, certainly I and my party agree with the comments of the then Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, in an interview with the Daily Mail on 12th October last, where he made a very robust comment on the report. He said:
- "Unlike the Runnymede Trust I firmly believe that there is a future for Britain and Britishness. I do not accept the arguments of those on the Nationalistic right or the liberal left that Britain as a cohesive whole is dead".
We all take pride in seeing British athletes of whatever ethnic origin win at the Olympics or at football. In the same interview, Mr Straw went on to say:
- "I am disappointed that the commission is so grudging in recognising what we have achieved already. I do not I regret find the Runnymede Trust of particular help in that regard".
I turn now to the sad events of the recent riots in Bradford and other northern cities. These have brought into focus the one word which is central to the debate--namely, "multi-culturalism". If there is one thing to come out of these events, it is the need to strike the delicate balance between intensive segregation on the one hand and total assimilation on the other. The former leads to the ghetto; the latter to extinction of national subcultures. As an article in this week's issue of the Economist points out, for a society to be truly multicultural some degree of assimilatory mixing is necessary. This is borne out again by the report chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, on the situation in
Bradford. It is certainly a vindication of the stance taken by Mr Ray Honeyford in his campaign to de-segrate the Bradford schools, for which he lost his job.My party opposes racism in any form. We believe in an inclusive Britain. To achieve that, we need an approach based on the British tradition of tolerance--one of respecting people for their character rather than their colour--not an approach based on a panoply of patronising and politically correct nonsense. While we agree with a number of the recommendations in the report, we believe that there is a missed opportunity to highlight the very real progress that has been made in making Britain more inclusive.
In conclusion, I again thank the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, and his committee for this comprehensive report. It has prompted a very British response--a debate on the subject. I shall be interested to hear the Minister's reply.
8.31 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Rooker): My Lords, we all owe a debt of gratitude to my noble friend Lady Uddin for introducing the debate, and to the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, and his team for preparing the report. This has been an interesting debate. I agreed with virtually every word of many contributions from both sides of the Chamber, although there has been no tension.
I must say one thing to my noble friend Lady Uddin. I have not yet read all of the detailed contributions of my honourable friend in another place, Ann Cryer; however, I did hear her on the radio and I agreed with everything she said. She was not talking about compulsory English; but she was talking about importing poverty--as has happened in my former constituency. She made a fair point. It touches also on some of the points raised by the noble Baroness Lady Park. She referred to what happens to young girls of 13 or 14 who think that they are being sent on holiday; they do not know that they are being sent abroad in order to return with a husband. I have dealt with dozens, if not hundreds, of such cases over the years. It is a tragedy. It is a question of civil rights.
Not wishing to employ a stereotype, there is a divide in terms of educational achievement. The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, is absolutely right. I did not note down all the figures mentioned by my noble friend Lady Whitaker, but they indicate that those of Indian origin are close to whites in terms of educational achievement as opposed to members of other ethnic groups. We must ask why that is. We cannot lump people together. Whites are not a homogeneous group. When I use the word "Asians", I do not know what I am talking about. They are not a homogeneous group. On the sub-continent they are split between different countries, different faiths and different cultures. Their religions come from an absolutely different standpoints. Lumping people together is a big mistake, particularly when we white leaders do it because we think it is politically correct. Going along with political correctness is part of the cause of the problem.
I was at Aston University yesterday, where I studied 40 years ago. They brought me in to correct my misdemeanours in the past and to give me an honorary degree. The multicultural efforts of the student population in which I took part bore testimony to the fantastic variation that we have from all social groups.
But let us not beat about the bush. Only three or four years ago, a young women in my constituency said to me: "Jeff, some of my friends are not allowed to put the milk bottles on the doorstep. My mum is not allowed to travel on the bus to town on her own". There are girls who are not allowed swimming lessons, even fully clothed, with female instructors. That is a denial of civil rights--which are non-negotiable. In relation to domestic violence the Parekh report states that there is a non-negotiable bottom line: people's individual civil rights. Then you can build around those rights and maintain the culture and the heritage as one generation succeeds another; greater assimilation is inevitable. You maintain the culture of diversity; you maintain the religious differences. But the bottom, non-negotiable line is the civil rights of our fellow citizens.
I shall not defend political correctness. I never have done. It has caused me a few problems. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, and I once walked the streets together in Perry Bar in Birmingham. We did not see a divide; we saw exactly the points that the noble Lord made. People have gradually built a way out of the difficulties that occurred in the Handsworth riots.
There is no question that we must do a great deal better in terms of economic performance and job discrimination. There is clearly rampant discrimination in some areas. Some people think that it is not worth obtaining qualifications. They make a big mistake.
I do want to cause anyone to take umbrage, but two speakers referred to asylum and immigration as though they were interconnected. They are completely different. President Bush did not go to welcome asylum seekers; he went to welcome new immigrants to the American economy. That is exactly what we ought to do, would do, and do do. But it is a massive mistake to equate asylum with immigration. The two are not the same. We must run twin-track policies. Mixing them up, as happens in the media, is causing massive problems for communities that are settled here and for those who come to join them, whether under the terms of work permits or settlement permits for marriage or merely to join their families. That has nothing to do with seeking asylum. We must never make the connection between seeking asylum and economic prosperity; otherwise, we could rule out those who genuinely fulfil the United Nations' requirements for asylum. That is what it is about. It is not about economic migration. We must adjust to that. We must examine our own economy, as other countries in Europe are doing, and plan for that; but we must not use asylum as the back door for doing that. If we are not careful, we shall make the wrong decisions. As likely as not, we shall not give asylum to those who can genuinely meet the demands of the United Nations
resolution which are uppermost in our mind. That is the centre of asylum policy. We are not confusing the two. The present team at the Home Office is determined not to go down that road.The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, referred to complaints against the police. I hope I have got this right, as I believe I said in my maiden speech, the police Bill that we shall bring forward this Session will set up a truly independent police complaints procedure. That has always been a bone of contention. The Bill is some way away from publication and it will probably go to the other House before it comes to this place, but it will certainly tackle that problem.
The noble Lord referred also to speeding up decisions. In one year, the number of decisions has risen from some 50,000 to 130,000. However, I must warn noble Lords that some people do not like decisions to be speeded up. By "decision" I mean a firm, quality decision; otherwise it does not work. But some in the industry do not like that. The inevitable consequence of speeding up decisions means that you have to face the consequences four-square: 80 per cent of applicants are found not to have a well-founded fear of persecution under the terms of the UN convention. As a result, action has to be taken. Some people preferred the old, inefficient approach, whereby sacks of mail remained unopened, the Home Office was incredibly inefficient, and no one knew about the matter, took any decisions, or read any papers for years. That situation is changing radically, but the consequences are such that it will make unpleasant reading for some.
The noble Baroness, Lady Park, touched on forced marriages. It goes without saying that there is no justification for this practice. I need go no further.
My noble friend Lady Whitaker asked specifically about the Performance Innovation Unit project. The project's central objective is to increase the achievement of ethnic minorities in the labour market; and to do it under a better and shared understanding of what are the current differentials within ethnic groups and what causes those differentials, drawing on the existing research. It will undertake an assessment of the effectiveness of different approaches to increasing the achievement of ethnic groups and will examine the impact of existing action by government, in the private and the voluntary sector.
We shall also consider a clear policy recommendation for building on existing work and adopting new approaches to address the causes. Indeed, that will help to develop a fresh intellectual policy approach to the issues regarding the ethnic minority differential performance in the labour market. The project will examine such issues as the role of employers, both public and private, in shaping the labour market, as well the role of private services--such as banks and financial institutions--the impact of discrimination, the effect of economic conditions, and working patterns. Those issues must be tackled. I expect the PIU report to be a really valuable document in that respect.
We are also considering the effect of the SRB, and its successor "Neighbourhood Renewal". The money--literally, hundreds of millions of pounds--is going into the 88 areas defined by the census information. In order to deliver, the money must have a consequence at the end of the process. Indeed, it will have to deliver to narrow the gap on many of the measures of disadvantage, worklessness, crime, health, skills, housing and the physical environment of some of these areas. We must tackle all of those issues. However, ultimately we shall want to know what difference the money made. It must make a difference to people's lives. We need, if you like, to look at the "footprints" of people's lives and see that they have been vastly improved by us through targeting resources in this way. We have found that the old way of spreading the money thinly did not work.
I hope that I dealt with the point made by my noble friend Lord Hunt. In fact, one of the issues raised was the work between the English and French regarding the Channel Tunnel. I shall be visiting Dover and Coquilles tomorrow to review some of these issues at first hand. We are doing everything that we can to work together in this difficult situation. There is no question about that. It is causing problems for both countries. It is causing great hardship for people. It is causing deaths: people are incredibly brave, but they are also incredibly stupid. Nevertheless, some people are pushed to such action because they have already spent so much money on getting this far. Therefore, they are now in bondage and have to take incredible risks.
The issue of positive discrimination was raised--I am sorry, but I have forgotten which speaker did so. I have considered the matter over the years, as, indeed, have many other people. All the projects come along with big new investment. You think, "Right, this is a great opportunity here to get local firms and local people involved. There will be new training for the community with this project". However, we come up against the problem in the process of having to address some of the rules from the European Union, especially if we are talking about large projects. We could not do it with the national indoor arena or the international convention centre in Birmingham. There is a difficulty with positive discrimination in that it can be held to be unlawful.
However, the Race Relations Act does allow us to take positive action in certain areas. Therefore, in those areas where it is possible to do so and where we can gain a big advantage from it, we want to ensure that we take such action. But, of course, there is nothing to stop companies in, say, Bradford and Burnley, or other parts of the country, investing in those areas. That point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, a few weeks ago when I made a Statement to the House. After the Liverpool riots, Michael Heseltine took a coach-load of businessmen to the area and asked, "Are your companies buying from these local subcontractors? Are they employing local labour?" By just asking the question, sometimes you can solve the problem. It does not need a government-driven plan to achieve that end. You have
only to observe what cars the French people drive. It is almost ingrained in them. I do not believe that there is a law that requires them to drive Renaults and Citroe ns made in France, but they look at what is available on the market and draw the obvious conclusion.The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, mentioned the report of the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, on Bradford. We are extremely grateful, as, I am sure, is the whole House, for that report. I certainly look forward to the contributions that the noble Lord will make in this House. I am sure that he will bring great wisdom to our proceedings.
I turn to the report that forms the subject of this debate. I am well aware of some of the history involved; that is why I have not gone into the detail. I remember the publication of the report and the debate that followed; and, indeed, some of the newspaper headlines that were not very productive. Nevertheless, there were 130 recommendations, which, as a package, are broadly in line with what the Government are trying to do and have set out to achieve. I am not saying that that applies to every one of them, because there are the odd one or two that go right against what we are trying to do in respect of certain aspects of policy. But as regards what we are trying to achieve with the "Neighbourhood Renewal" strategy, with building citizenship and with community awareness in the national curriculum, we are bang on.
I understand that the previous Home Secretary met the chairman of the group that produced the report, my noble friend Lord Parekh. I know that my right honourable friend David Blunkett has already fixed a meeting for a specific date in September. There is no need for me to put the specific date on the record, but the meeting will take place in about the third week of September when we shall discuss the issues involved. I hope that I shall be present. During the intervening period, I am obviously prepared to discuss some of the issues that come from the report with both my noble friends and noble Lords on both sides of the House.
We shall certainly take forward the recommendations that we can, but I shall do more work on these issues than I have been able to accomplish in the short time that I have been at the Home Office. I have read only the press reports issued at the time that the report was published. I remember that the debate about Britishness took away the focus from some of the key issues, which I believe this House would want to take forward. Indeed, I am sure that the House would certainly want the Government to report back on what we are doing in this regard from time to time. The debate will not go away--rightly so.
Baroness Uddin: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, perhaps I may express my thanks to him and to the other noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and made it most meaningful. On behalf of my noble friend Lord Parekh, perhaps I may tell the House that he was unable to attend today due to a longstanding commitment elsewhere.
- House adjourned at thirteen minutes before nine o'clock.
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