Black Lives Matter: Protests

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Kidron

Monday 15th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I wholeheartedly agree with my noble friend. To take things down is to erase history, and erasing history is absolutely not what we should be about in educating our children about the misdemeanours of the past, as well as the great things of the past—the people who built our country. He is absolutely right: we should take down racism but not legacies of our history, which seek to educate us all. I pass many statues in and around Westminster. Some of them are offensive to me. I understand why others are there and they are a learning point for history.

[Baroness Kidron (CB) [V]]

I agree with those who say that we should not attempt to erase history, but our public spaces, just like our curriculum, our cultural narratives and our public institutions, reflect only a partial history of Britain. Protestors are not trying to forget that; rather, they are demanding to be remembered. This morning, the PM wrote that he will resist with every breath in his body the editing or photoshopping of history, but perhaps the Minister will acknowledge that the most egregious editing in the last week was not the removal of the statue of a slave trader in Bristol but the Government’s decision to delay publishing the Public Health England recommendations that found that systemic racism and inequalities led to excessive deaths of BAME Britons from Covid-19.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I cannot concur with the noble Baroness. This Government have acted on the advice of scientists. Any life that is lost is a life too many, and this is a novel virus that has affected some communities more than others. We are still trying to understand why, but we should not conflate that with addressing where the roots of racism lie in our country, because there is no doubt that the events of the last two weeks have not just happened randomly. There is a deep-rooted feeling of inequality in some communities in this country.