Dear Rt Hon Sajid Javid: BME leaders write to Minister

Ratna Lachman, Director of JUST West Yorkshire has brilliantly pooled together an unprecedented series of statements directed to the nation's first Black Secretary of State Sajid Javid, who has, as part of his portfolio the Equality brief.

One would hope that having read the statements, the Secretary of State would convene a meeting with a number of delegates on how he and his Government can better deliver race equality. Watch this space. 

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JUST West Yorkshire

Dear Mr. Sajid Javid,

JUST West Yorkshire would like to congratulate you on your appointment as the newly appointed Equalities Minister. Following your appointment, JUST invited leading organisations working on race equality to deliver a direct message to you and it is clear from their responses that there is unease over the current situation.

You take over your portfolio at a time when ethnic minority confidence in your government is at an all time low. Your government’s negative rhetoric on race, immigration, asylum seekers, Gypsies and Travellers has created an environment, which has divided communities; undermined community cohesion; and legitimised xenophobia.

Your government’s relentless assault on equalities legislation and its failure to articulate a clear race equality policy has served to exacerbate inequality, deprivation and poverty among ethnic minority communities.

We hope you will take the time to reflect on their messages and we collectively look forward to an early meeting with you to discuss how we can work to progress the race equality agenda.

Jabeer Butt - Race Equality Foundation

The Race Equality Foundation congratulates you on your promotion to the position of Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. We hope that you recognise that your elevation is the result of the many people, communities and organisations who have stood up against racial discrimination and worked tirelessly to promote equality. We also hope that you now set out clearly how your Government will progress equality for this and future generations.

The Foundation hopes that the plans you articulate for progressing equality also encompass health and social care. Here we have seen significant change over the past twenty years such as the establishment of a national screening programme for sickle cell and thalassaemia and the inclusion in legislation that health organisations address health inequalities.

At the same time we have seen the persistence of ethnic health inequalities with, for example, poorer outcomes for black and minority ethnic people with diabetes, leading to a greater likelihood of renal failure, but a lower chance of securing a kidney transplant. Shockingly, while the evidence is clear that earlier and better care saves the health and care services money, action is still haphazard at best.

We hope you work with your health colleagues to address the inequality in health outcomes that many ethnic minority communities unfortunately continue to experience.

Karen Chouhan - Equanomics

Mr. Javid, we would like your government to recognise that the BME pound has been critical to building the economy of Britain and the contribution of businesses and workers in rates and taxes has enhanced the public purse. Yet race inequalities continue to persist despite our net asset contribution.

For instance the highest proportion of low income families are from Black and Minority Ethnic communities. The 2010 Census highlighted that unemployment rates among Pakistani British men was one and a half times that of White British men and it was three times as high for Black British Caribbean men. Women too fared badly with the rate for Black (British) Caribbean women being twice that of White British women and more than three times for British Pakistani women.

These facts together with your government’s damaging policy agenda focusing on immigration means that ethnic minority access to full participation in society is limited. Equality of opportunity is an empty slogan if the playing field is uneven – so please focus on equity and fairness.

Don Flynn - Migrant Rights Network

Dear Mr Javid,

Please accept our congratulations for your appointment to the post of Culture Secretary and Minister for Equalities. We wish you well for the challenges you will be facing in this job.

Prominent amongst these will be the need to change the tone and direction of the current public conversation on immigration policy. It is becoming increasingly urgent that the negativity of public perceptions of migration be confronted; particularly those which see in this complex issue nothing but the unwelcome opportunism of newcomers who are seeking to exploit public services and benefits.

This has been a refrain that has run through the heart of British public debate since the 1960s, with immigrants from the Caribbean, Africa and the Indian subcontinent being cast in the role of an unwanted burden on British society.

This perception of immigrants has impeded progress towards fairness and equality for decades. Where we can point to a record of advance it has been down to the extraordinary efforts of individuals and communities determined to resist racist narratives and strive instead for social justice.

The re-emergence of migration as a dynamic factor in British society over the last 15 years requires that we look again at a whole range of social and economic policies which serve to increase the vulnerability of newcomers and which threaten them with the risks of exploitation and exclusion from the public services which support social cohesion and civic life in our country.

We hope that one of your roles in government will be to act as a champion for the rights of migrants, old and new, to the UK, challenging any obstacles and barriers to equality that might be thrown up of government legislation.

We will look forward to the opportunity to work with you in achieving the end of equality for migrants.

Andy Gregg - Race on the Agenda

Dear Sajid Javid

Congratulations on your appointment to the post of Equalities Minister.

As the first British Asian MP to lead a Government Department, I am sure that you will recognise that all parties need to do more to address the many serious issues that face black and minority ethnic communities throughout the UK.

In particular it is becoming clear that the Conservative Party has a historic deficit in terms of the degree to which it is trusted by black and asian voters, despite recent increases in the numbers of minority ethnic Conservative MPs and candidates – a development that your welcome appointment exemplifies. We hope that you will respond to this deficit by listening to and engaging with BAME communities more actively and seeking to address their very real concerns.

Harmonious race relations do not just happen of their own accord. Britain needs to do much more as a country to address the stark inequalities of wealth and power as well as those caused by institutional racism throughout our public, policing and prison services. Improvements will not happen unless the issues of race and racism are looked at firmly and squarely rather than being allowed to slide off the agenda as they have in the past few years. We look forward to collaborating with you in this endeavour and wish you well in your new post.

Lee Jasper - BARAC UK

We offer our congratulations to your appointment as the Equalities Minister. We give your Party credit for seeking to tackle disproportionality in stop and search and setting up another public Inquiry into police corruption in the Stephen Lawrence case.

In addition your government’s decision to maintain Britain’s overseas aid budget is commendable. However these are small islands of excellence in a sea of policies that have perpetuated profound inequality. Our country today, stands more divided, more disunited and fractured that at any time in cur recent history.

Under your government we have witnessed an increase in racist and religious attacks and widening racial disparity in a host of areas. Disproportionate cuts to public sector budgets are hitting Black communities hardest: we suffer 60% youth unemployment and live in the most deprived areas of the UK. In order to tackle race inequality you could start by introducing the following measures:

• Reestablishing the Commission For Racial Equality and local Race Equality Councils
• Strengthening not weakening Equality legislation
• Protecting legal aid budgets
• Introducing the Northern Ireland Fair Employment Act in the rest if the UK.

Your commitment to true equality will ultimately be judged in terms of your ability to tackle acute disadvantage through making structural changes. Our fervent hope is that you are a man of vision not ambition, a man of his word who understands the importance to democracy of ensuring equality for all. We live in hope.

Dr Omar Khan - Runnymede

Dear Mr Javid

Please accept our congratulations for your appointment to the post of Culture Secretary and Minister for Equalities. We wish you well for the challenges you will be facing in this job.

We know that you are familiar with some of these challenges, notably the difficulties Black and Asian businesses face in seeking access to finance. At the Treasury you have recognised how postcode information and other aspects of credit scoring can disadvantage ethnic minority business, inadvertently or not, and have taken steps to change those practices.

As with lending, the evidence shows that Black and minority ethnic people remain disadvantaged across a range of important social and economic indicators, including education, employment and criminal justice. To close the employment gap requires that 500,000 Black and Asian people get jobs, a target that appears particularly challenging given the unemployment rate for young Black men has remained stubbornly high at 50% for around two years.

While there are of course many positive developments – especially in education – even here the message is more mixed, with Chinese graduates having worse outcomes in the labour market compared to White British graduates despite their better grades.

So as with banking, other institutions and individuals need to be challenged about how they are currently responding to these racial inequalities. The first step is recognising the evidence, but it is just as important that government better assesses the impact of its policies on Black and Asian people.

This is not simply a question of evidence gathering, but of responding to equality legislation and seeking to redesign policies where necessary so that any disparate impacts are at least mitigated. An example is the benefit cap, where the DWP found that 40% of those affected are ethnic minorities, but then proposed nothing in the way of mitigating those effects.

Whatever its legal obligations, if this or any government does not mitigate the unequal effects of policy ethnic inequalities will worsen. This is not only puts a brake on Britain’s economic future, but also challenges the nature of our democracy.

There are now 8 million Black and ethnic minority people living in the UK – roughly the same as live in Scotland and Wales combined – a figure that will rise with every passing parliament. If the employment gap does not narrow, the figure of ‘missing’ ethnic minority workers could rise to 1 million by 2050. The scale of the challenge suggests that government cannot simply support further Big Lunches between neighbours, but needs to adopt a more strategic race equality policy that is monitored for effectiveness.

We will look forward to the opportunity to work with you in building a Britain in which all citizens and communities feel valued, enjoy equal opportunities, lead fulfilling lives, and share a common sense of belonging.

Habib Rahman - Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants

Mr Javid, I welcome you as the first cabinet minister from an ethnic background, one who is charged to oversee and scrutinise policies to ensure everyone, irrespective of their background and race, enjoys equal rights and treatment in our country.

You might start with the divisive Immigration Bill, which is destined to discriminate and create a two-tier Britain. It demands landlords, public sector workers and others become de facto border agents.

It also takes away appeal rights against unjust decisions by the Home Office for thousands refused visas. These measures will lead to discrimination and division in society, I do not wish such a legacy upon you.

Pragna Patel - Southall Black Sisters

Mr Javid, congratulations on your appointment as the Coalition’s Equalities Minister. I hope that you will as an immediate priority, take a step back and reflect seriously on your government’s policies and rhetoric on minorities. It has flamed a culture of racism and xenophobia and made them respectable once again.

My clear message to you is to please stop playing with politics and start leading by example. Put race back into equality. Currently, the national and European wide discourse on immigration, community cohesion and integration is problematic and damaging because at it’s heart lies the view that the presence of minorities from certain parts of the world, is undesirable.

Although, we had a brief moment of positive change in the aftermath of the Stephen Lawrence case, (an example of how change was achieved through direct action), the national discourse is no longer about racial inequality but racial integration in the discredited assimilation sense of the term. It is about how immigrants and refugees are ‘suited’ or unsuited’ or more or less adaptable to so-called British (Christian) values.

Minority communities are blamed for their own marginality and insecurity; they are problematised for leading ‘parallel’ lives and for causing segregation. The immense social deprivation they face is understood in simplistic culture related terms, rather than years of structural racism and disparities, corruption, cronyism and democratic deficits in local governance or the phenomenon of white flight.

Whether intended or not, the integration model is used by both the media and politicians to reduce the whole thing to a matter of relations between the races rather to a politics of inequality that is located within economic, political and ideological relations. Please, please reverse this situation and show us that you and your government can do anti-racism, compassion, tolerance and human rights.

Guy Taylor - Movement Against Xenophobia

Mr Javid, your Government is inflaming xenophobia and prejudice through its policies and actions. As you try to compete with reactionary parties like UKIP for racist votes, you enter into a race to the bottom, to court the lowest common denominator.

The climate of hostility the Government is creating reaches far beyond the declared target of migrants here without papers, and will lead to a divided society infused with mistrust and suspicion. We fear your appointment is going to make no difference to this sorry state of affairs. Prove us wrong, stop blaming migrants for this country’s problems.

Chris Whitwell - Friends, Families and Travellers

Dear Mr Javid,

Congratulations on your appointment as Culture Secretary and Minister for Equalities and we wish you well in your new role. Friends, Families and Travellers is a national charity working on behalf of all Gypsies, Travellers and Roma and we have three requests that we would like to make of you.

To recognise and acknowledge that racism and race inequality is still endemic in the UK and that there is much work to be done to eliminate it from our society.
To confirm that race equality means equality for all ethnic groups, including Romany Gypsies, Irish Travellers and Roma people who have been described as the last bastion of ‘acceptable’ racism in the UK.

To have the humility to accept that you still have much to learn about the diverse communities that live and work in the UK and to listen carefully to the people from those communities so as to develop a better understanding of the issues that they face.

Simon Woolley – Operation Black Vote

Mr. Sajid Javid,

We wish you all the best in your role as the new Secretary of State for Culture and Media, with an Equalities portfolio.

You have a huge challenge in all areas, not least with the equality brief. My advice to you would be first to call on the Head of Equality and Human Rights Commission, and ask her to explain why tackling race inequality has all but vanished from the Commission’s new Business plan.

Then I would urge you to inform the PM that unless the Government also puts tackling race inequality back on the agenda they will surely lose the next General election.

The maths is very simple: 168 marginal seats.