Ethnic Minorities

Part of Opposition Day – in the House of Commons at 4:17 pm on 9 June 1992.

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Photo of Kenneth Clarke Kenneth Clarke The Secretary of State for the Home Department 4:17, 9 June 1992

I shall not give way. The ethnic minority business programme, which is not strong in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, is continuing. We must remove the obstacles which can prevent minority businesses from moving into the mainstream of commercial life.

Also, we must continue to improve the targeting of other areas of public expenditure, aimed at addressing the special needs of people from ethnic minorities. That is important, given the large sums of money being spent. Large sums of public money are available, but ill-directed good intentions can pour some of it down the drain. Anyone involved in inner city programmes has seen that happen occasionally. I am not saying that that happens under section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966, but we are studying targeting in that area and shall continue to do so. Under section 11, £129 million will be made available to local authorities in 1992–93. That is not small money in such an area. We have already made progress in revising the criteria for section 11 grants so that work is targeted and expenditure gives value for money. I am studying future policy on the better use of that money.

We should find an opportunity at some time—I do not know when—to study the wording of section 11, which gets in the way of many things that people want. We all know that it is confined to local government staff and to the new Commonwealth. One cannot help Vietnamese minorities, for example. One day I hope to have the opportunity to do something about that.

Good progress has been made in that area and in many others, but I am sure that barriers remain to full opportunity for people from ethnic minorities and to a fully integrated society. The most obvious and obnoxious barrier is racial discrimination, and the Government remain committed to eliminating its evils. We demonstrate our commitment by support of the law, and shall continue to do so. Our race relations laws are the most comprehensive in Europe. I do not think that it is xenophobic to say that they are undoubtedly the best in the European Community. As a Government, we work closely with the Commission for Racial Equality in enforcing the law and support it in all its work.

We have done a great deal of work in combating racially targeted crime. Detailed guidance has been issued to the police and other agencies following the initiative of the inter-departmental racial attacks group. Police forces are urged to give priority to incidents of racially motivated crime. I believe that the big increase in the number of incidents reported to the police shows an increased confidence in the ability of the police to respond to those reports. Undoubtedly, we have to continue to attack such crime with vigour.

We must also make sure that the community consultation engaged in by the police, which they now perform statutorily, extends to proper consultation with all those groups that it is most difficult to get involved, in particular young people but also people from the ethnic minorities with whom consultation is most important to improve the quality of police work. As I hope that everybody knows, we have been working extremely hard in support of the police authorities to improve recruitment from ethnic minorities. We still have a considerable way to go, but in the past year or two in particular there has been considerable activity to support the recruitment of ethnic minorities. I am glad to say that there are now more than 1,500 officers from the ethnic minorities in place, and we shall take every action that we can to ensure an increase in the number of good men and women from the ethnic minorities who enter the police service.

I know that people are concerned about racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. A great deal of attention has been paid to the disproportionate number of black and ethnic minority people in prison, the disproportionate number who appear to he prosecuted rather than cautioned, and the disproportionately low numbers in place in the professions and in the administration of the courts. I believe that those statistics do not demonstrate racial bias in the system of administration of justice. Through most of the criminal justice system, there is a much higher proportion of people who are positively hostile to the idea of racial discrimination than there is among the general population.

There is no point in being complacent. I agree that many sensible people look at the statistics and are concerned that there appears to be discrimination. Therefore, we have done a lot of research. The figures that I could give to the House come out of work in which my Department has been involved, monitoring to ensure that we identify problem areas. This is an area in which I support, among other things, ethnic monitoring of the prison population and of the statistics of those cautioned and prosecuted, and then action to ensure that we do what is necessary.

We shall have more information. Only last year, section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 placed a duty on the Secretary of State to publish regular information concerning the avoidance of discrimination. Those involved in the administration of criminal justice are already under a duty not to discriminate. The publication of information by the Secretary of State is intended to help them to perform this duty effectively. I confirm that the first statistics under section 95 will be published before the end of this year.