Government Equalities

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

This is a good time to remind the House that the current chair of the Runnymede Trust applied to be the Labour candidate for Poplar and Limehouse in 2019, but failed to make the shortlist. I would be keen to know whether the shadow Minister condemns those sorts of remarks, or believes that they are acceptable so long as they are targeted at people she disagrees with.

An error has been identified in the response I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt).

The correct response should have been:

This is a good time to remind the House that the current director of the Runnymede Trust applied to be the Labour candidate for Poplar and Limehouse in 2019, but failed to make the shortlist. I would be keen to know whether the shadow Minister condemns those sorts of remarks, or believes that they are acceptable so long as they are targeted at people she disagrees with.

We did not go to the race relations industry to ask people to tell us the same things they have been telling us for a long time; we went to people who work in the field such as doctors, teachers, policemen, scientists, economists and journalists—including, I might add, a former chair of the Runnymede Trust—to find out what we can do to improve disparities in this country.

An error has been identified in the response I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler).

The correct response should have been:

We did not go to the race relations industry to ask people to tell us the same things they have been telling us for a long time; we went to people who work in the field such as doctors, teachers, policemen, scientists, economists and journalists—including, I might add, a former director of the Runnymede Trust—to find out what we can do to improve disparities in this country.

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and note her comments about the former Runnymede Trust. We on the Conservative Benches have worked well with people such as Trevor Phillips, and one of the commissioners, Samir Shah, is also a former chair of the Runnymede Trust, but I cannot accept the behaviour of the current chair and some staff members.

An error has been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi).

The correct response should have been:

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and note her comments about the former Runnymede Trust. We on the Conservative Benches have worked well with people such as Trevor Phillips, and one of the commissioners, Samir Shah, is also a former chair of the Runnymede Trust, but I cannot accept the behaviour of the current director and some staff members.

It is interesting that the hon. Lady raises that point. The Runnymede Trust has said, according to a letter from the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, that the EHRC should not have funding. It implied that the EHRC should be defunded, so if she wants to talk about people who want to defund charities and organisations working on racial equality, she should ask the chair of the Runnymede Trust why she made that statement.

An error has been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson).

The correct response should have been:

It is interesting that the hon. Lady raises that point. The Runnymede Trust has said, according to a letter from the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, that the EHRC should not have funding. It implied that the EHRC should be defunded, so if she wants to talk about people who want to defund charities and organisations working on racial equality, she should ask the director of the Runnymede Trust why she made that statement.