‘Black people more likely to be in prison than at a top university’- David Cameron
Universities will be forced by law
to disclose what proportion of ethnic minority applicants get places,
David Cameron has announced as part of a concerted Government
anti-discrimination drive.
The Prime Minister said the transparency rules should
prompt institutions such as Oxford to work harder to broaden their
intake and warned the police, the courts and the armed forces they also
had to act.
Education chiefs have been summoned to Downing
Street on Monday for talks with Business Secretary Sajid Javid to
discuss why young black men are more likely to be in prison than
studying at a top university.
It comes as Mr Cameron has hired a leading black
Labour MP to investigate whether the police and court system is racially
biased.
David Lammy will lead a sweeping review into why
black people are more likely to be in prison than at a top university,
and why black criminals are given harsher sentences than white
offenders.
Mr Lammy’s review is expected to report on his
findings and recommend reforms to the Ministry of Justice in the spring
of next year.
Mr Cameron said:
“If you’re black, you’re more likely to be
in a prison cell than studying at a top university. And if you’re black,
it seems you’re more likely to be sentenced to custody for a crime than
if you’re white. We should investigate why this is and how we can end
this possible discrimination.
“Only one in 10 of the poorest white boys go into higher education at all.
“There are no black generals in our armed
forces and just 4 per cent of chief executives in the FTSE 100 are from
ethnic minorities.
“What does this say about modern Britain?
Are these just the symptoms of class divisions or a lack of equal
opportunity? Or is it something worse – something more ingrained,
institutional and insidious?”
The UK had come a long way, he added, “but there is
much more to do, and these examples I mention should shame our country
and jolt us to action”.
“I don’t care whether it’s overt,
unconscious or institutional – we’ve got to stamp it out,” he added,
warning it would otherwise only “feed those who preach a message of
grievance and victimhood”.
Mr Cameron rejected what he called “politically
correct, contrived and unfair solutions” such as quotas but said it was
“striking” that Oxford’s 2014 intake of more than 2,500 included only 27
black students.
“I know the reasons are complex, including
poor schooling, but I worry that the university I was so proud to attend
is not doing enough to attract talent from across our country,” he
said.
The new rules will require routine publication of data
on applicants, broken down by course, gender, ethnicity and
socio-economic background.
His intervention is likely to further fuel protests by
some students at Oxford over the refusal to remove a statue of British
colonialist Cecil Rhodes from the front of Oriel college they say
represents racism and oppression.
Mr Cameron said public institutions needed to “dig
deeper”, w
arning he also intended action to eradicate “the stubborn
problem of under-representation in our police and armed forces”.
“It’s not enough to simply say you are open
to all. Ask yourselves: are you going that extra mile to really show
people that yours can be a place for everyone, regardless of
background?”
Mr Lammy, who wrote a book on the 2011 riots that were
sparked by the killing of a black man by the police in his Tottenham
constituency, has been tasked with rooting out the causes of
“disgraceful” gulfs in sentencing treatment.
“It’s disgraceful that if you’re black, it
seems you’re more likely to be sentenced to custody for a crime than if
you’re white,” the PM said.
“We should investigate why this is and how
we can end this possible discrimination. That’s why I have asked David
Lammy MP to lead a review of the over-representation of BME communities
in the criminal justice system.
“And this will include possible sentencing and prosecutorial disparity.”
