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Social Inclusion

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for introducing this debate. She brings vast experience from her life outside this House. In a hugely important and very wide-ranging subject, I shall restrict my remarks to issues about race and ethnicity. Those of us on the optimistic wing of politics have long felt that long-term social and economic change in our country would lead to greater social cohesion, less division and a more integrated society. Maybe it was a bit Marxist of us to expect economic integration to lead automatically to social, political and cultural integration. Recent events in our northern cities and in France have raised serious question marks over that perhaps rosy picture. It is no wonder that Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, declared that, today, multiculturalism is dead. After all, what is multiculturalism? Describe it how you will, Britain does have a dominant culture. It was that culture that was so attractive to many of us who have made our home in these islands. The question is how to strike a balance between the demand that citizens accept those cultural norms and a tolerance of the differing values of a diverse population. To me, multiculturalism must be about integration, not assimilation. The danger is that, in showing tolerance to minorities and their culture, one can appear to have less respect for the culture of the majority. As my very good friend John Sentamu—enthroned yesterday as the first ethnic minority Archbishop of York—said:"““Multiculturalism has seemed to imply, wrongly for me, let other cultures be allowed to express themselves but do not let the majority culture at all tell us its glories, it struggles, its joys, its pains””." Let us be honest, striking the right balance is difficult. Our tolerance for minority attitudes and cultures should not be abused by minorities wanting to impose their values on the majority. That means avoiding separatism in our welfare, health and, especially, education systems. I am very nervous about the encouragement of exclusive religious schools. Back in India, as a child from a Hindu family, I attended a Catholic school—most of the schools were Catholic. It was an excellent school. Despite or because of my education, I am still a Hindu, but with a much better understanding of Christians, the British and Western culture. On the one hand, none of us would want total cultural uniformity; but we want all our citizens to have the language skills and the cultural sensitivity to operate successfully in society and in the economy. The Government have been broadly successful in balancing integration with diversity. In a rapidly globalising world, diversity is a tremendous strength. We know what a huge contribution migrants and minorities make to the country. They are more than paying their way. Recent research undertaken by the Institute for Public Policy Research shows that minorities pay more in tax than they draw from the public purse. However, diversity is a strength only if we can balance it with a high degree of social cohesion and solidarity. As the balance changes with new waves of immigration from southern and eastern Europe and from North Africa, we need to renew our commitment to getting the balance right. We will need new measures to promote economic and civic integration. With increasing diversity, we need new ways to strengthen social cohesion with welfare, health and education policies. In my area of education, we have had some success. In higher education, ethnic minorities are well represented, taking up 15 per cent of graduate output in England. Despite that, the employment rate for ethnic minorities is 58 per cent, compared with 75 per cent for the population as a whole. That shows that we cannot let up on countering discrimination. In some areas, such as today’s health service, there is little barrier to entry or promotion for ethnic minorities. In other parts of society, there is still work to do. The Government are acting to ensure that services such as the police force are more representative of the communities they serve. In other societies—in India, for example, or the United States—positive discrimination has been necessary to address historic discrimination. I believe that Britain has already moved beyond the need for positive discrimination. That does not mean that Britain does not need positive action—for example, when addressing recruitment procedures that may act as a barrier to opportunity for ethnic minorities. Discrimination breeds discontent and we must challenge it without resorting to the tokenism of promoting individual ethnic minorities to a level at which they might not be able to function. Today, ethnic minorities make up one in 12 of the population. In the school population they are one in eight, and by 2010 they could make one in five. That will put great pressure on our education system—a system which has complex set roles as a social integrator, a hedge against social exclusion and a vehicle for social mobility and achievement. We face some challenges. The picture that we have regarding the educational attainment of young people from different ethnic groups is still patchy. We still need evidence from better research if we are to identify where to focus our energy and resources. The new pupil annual schools census will help to monitor the performance of ethnic minority pupils both locally and nationally. These are complex issues. We need to understand better the impact of different national, cultural and socio-economic origins and the key role of family size and structure. We must also better understand the role of religion on educational attainment. No one should underestimate the contribution that ethnic minorities have played in changing the face of Britain considerably for the better, including the complexion of this House. The contribution that they have made to improving and widening our culture is immense. That is not a new phenomenon. In 1663, we know from his diaries that Samuel Pepys took his wife shopping in Cornhill, then one of London’s most fashionable shopping streets. He reported that after many trials—and that makes me realise the truth of his experience—he bought her,"““a Chintz that is painted Indian Calico for her to line the new study and it is very pretty””." Calico was an abbreviation of Calcut cloth or cloth from Calcut, which was the chief port, next to Goa, of trade between India and Europe. The British taste for food, music, art and design from every part of the world has been shaped by the ethnic minorities who live here. Our whole culture is richer for it. Our diet, our musical taste, our sense of dress and indeed our whole sense of colour have been enhanced by their presence. Today Britain is a brighter, more colourful, more diverse and more exciting place. I think that we have to thank the successful integration of our minority communities for making it so.