---

Multi-cultural Britain

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to my noble friend for this opportunity to continue our reflections on the legacy of the slave trade. As a Cross-Bencher, I join him in calling for more independence from Whips in another place. Coming to terms with slavery, as painful as it can be, is part of a gradual healing process in our society that can only help to build a strong and diverse community. It has also become a valuable exercise in global and community education, an issue that was touched on earlier. I congratulate the Government on helping teachers to use the history of the slave trade to expand students’ awareness of international affairs and on doubling their development education budget for schools and further education. That has meanta great deal: Mandarin, Arabic, climate change, healthy cooking and slavery are now all on the school menu. In February, the Education Secretary, Alan Johnson, announced changes that included compulsory teaching for key stage 3 students on the history and the impact of the slave trade, with explicit reference to the role of reformers such as Wilberforce and Equiano. As the Minister knows, I have admired the work of the Development Education Association since I came to this House and she will know of the ingenuity of the many small development education centres and organisations, such as the ones in Dorset, that are working to create case studies and course work based on the legacy of the slave trade. To me, this work is perhaps the most fundamental means of ensuring that we have a more progressive and understanding multi-cultural society in the future. Slavery has inspired a wide range of activities this year, including the dramatic concert in Westminster Hall last month hosted by my noble friend Lady Young, who has done so much for our own exhibition. There are major exhibitions, conferences and other events occurring every week this summer; school linking is bringing students across countriesto share their experiences and gain a wider understanding of slavery in its modern forms. There are many equally valuable smaller activities. For example, the Fairmead SEN school near Bristol in its slavery project invited an artist from Ghana to create some traditional artwork. The school also set out to challenge preconceptions by bringing in artefacts and photographs from Zambia to demonstrate the diversity of lifestyles, looking at housing, transport, costume, shopping and so on. For me, this links directly with the powerful imagery of the Clarkson chest, which noble Lords will know from our parliamentary exhibition, confronting our society, again, with African arts and crafts of high quality. This project has been supported by the DEA and the local education centre, as well as by DfID through the Global Dimension website for teachers. DfID has an obvious interest in all these projects, but it is important that the DfES should also take them seriously; it should talk to bodies such as the DEA to ensure that practice in schools keeps up with contemporary themes and trends and is not only dependent on the fact that there is a slavery anniversary. One of the many advantages of welcoming new migrants and asylum seekers is that they know what is happening in other cultures and can keep us abreast of these trends and changes. This month I detect some apprehension about our incoming Government and what they might do about immigration. What a contrast between the educational work that I have described and the barriers that are going up against new asylum seekers and migrants. We will hear more about that in the Statement in a moment and we will debate next week the UK Borders Bill, which has been introduced largely in the name of anti-terrorism and national security, to echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths. Here I declare an interest as a member of the Independent Asylum Commission. The commission emerged last year from a grass-roots initiative called the Citizen Organising Foundation, which produced an influential report on immigrants at Lunar House. The Asylum Commission is taking a new and, we hope, impartial look at the system dealing with asylum seekers, and we will make our own recommendations early next year. These are to ensure that we continue our proud history of sanctuary while restoring public confidence in the system. The commission is committed to investigating the asylum system on behalf of a whole range of citizens, from those who believe that asylum seekers are not being treated with humanity to those who believe that our asylum system is too generous. In my view, in the debate on immigration we are often concerned about overall numbers, as we should be, and so rarely acknowledge the achievements of those who come here for further study or asylum and return to help their own societies in Africa and elsewhere. There are spectacular examples of that. Finally, I commend the current Strangers into Citizens campaign of the Citizen Organising Foundation. Its proposal is simple: irregular migrants who have lived and worked in the UK for four or more years should be granted a two-year work permit and, at the end of those two years, subject to employer and character references, they should be given leave to remain. I do not hide the disadvantages of any form of amnesty for immigrants, but the writing is on the wall. It is arguable that if we do not create a solution, there will never be one. I hope that the Minister will grant that this proposal is now firmly under discussion.