With the Government recently publishing a new set of recommendations on how it can address the barriers to opportunity that exist within the UK, Burnley and Padiham MP Antony Higginbotham raised the importance of focusing on what an individual can bring to the table rather than what a person looks like.
Speaking in Women and Equalities Questions Antony asked the Minister of State for Equalities Kemi Badenoch MP to focus on the evidence as presented by the Sewell Report when working to improve social mobility.
The Sewell report which was released last year by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (CRED) concluded that “there was no systematic racism”, going further to say:
“Put simply, we no longer see a Britain where the system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities. The impediments and disparities do exist, they are varied, and ironically very few of them are directly to do with racism.”
In Parliament Antony Higginbotham MP said:
For too long, the focus on social mobility has been about what a person looks like and not what that person can offer.
Can the Minister confirm that we will consign that approach to history, and instead focus on what people can offer the country and ensure that they have the opportunity that they deserve?
Responding the Minister of State for Equalities Kemi Badenoch MP said:
My hon. Friend is right: social mobility is very much about the individual. He will be pleased to know that the Government are taking a new approach to equality which goes beyond the protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010 and also takes account of socioeconomic and regional disparities.
He will have noticed that we have released our strategy for racial equality, “Inclusive Britain”, which is based on some of the principles to which he has referred.
Speaking afterwards Antony added:
If we truly want every person, regardless of their background to benefit from the opportunities we have here in the UK, then we need to move away from the old approach that views people based purely on the way they look.
That’s the point I was raising in Parliament – we have to focus on the evidence; which is that to tackle inequality the focus must be on what people can offer.
Everybody is different and we all deserve equality of opportunity. That’s what I’m campaigning for on behalf of the residents of Burnley and Padiham.
