Black History Month

Calvin Bailey Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

It is quite scary to follow the hon. Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) and the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), who are both formidable advocates against injustice. I have done several debates with the hon. Member for Brent East, and I have so much respect for how she speaks to the Chamber. She was talking about that tiredness that people are feeling just now, from constantly having to fight for every single thing, and constantly having to argue against the injustices being served on her constituents and mine, as well as those of a significant number of Members across this House. It is absolutely tiring, but if she or the Mother of the House ever wants a cup of tea, a bit of allyship or, as we say in Aberdeen, a bosie—a cuddle—they should give us a shout. We are happy to oblige and to be united together.

The Mother of the House highlighted the cognitive dissonance that some politicians seem to have: they stand up and talk about Black History Month, while simultaneously refusing to discourage people who are protesting against migrants. That is really important. We need to remember that we cannot talk about the injustices that so many people face just once a year in this Chamber; we need to be fighting every single day. Every day that we have energy, we should be using it to ensure that there is an anti-racist narrative across society.

I represent Aberdeen North, one of the more diverse constituencies in Scotland. I will focus on the city of Aberdeen, because the census results are broken down by city rather than constituency, so it is much easier to do that. About 13.4% of people in Aberdeen come from a BME background, which is not that high, but over 20% of people in Aberdeen were not born in the United Kingdom, which is pretty high for Scotland. Some 2.5% of people in Aberdeen were born in Nigeria. There are 5,600 Nigerians—people who were born in Nigeria, not the descendants of immigrants—living in Aberdeen. We have a significant number of people who are working every day, who are contributing and who are making a difference.

I will mention some individuals, from both the past and present, who have made a difference in Aberdeen and Scotland. However, I note that there are so many people whose names we will never mention, who are working quietly as carers or in our NHS and doing jobs that are really difficult. I have been a carer, and it is a really hard, physical job that so many people do not want to do. To those who are making people’s lives better and doing miracles every single day, and whose names I do not mention, thank you for your contribution. It is massively appreciated.

I will first talk about some figures from the past. There is a wonderful part of the University of Aberdeen website that talks about the history of black Aberdonians and people who graduated from the university. Christopher James Davis, who was from Barbados, graduated in 1870—we think he is the first black graduate—in medicine, and then went to volunteer as a doctor in Sedan during the Franco-Prussian war. Sadly, he died from smallpox in the same year that he graduated.

Nathaniel Thomas King graduated from Aberdeen in 1876. He moved back to Nigeria and was one of the trailblazers in improving sanitation in Lagos. Again, he was another medicine graduate from Aberdeen.

Edward Tull-Warnock was a dentist in Aberdeen and Glasgow. His father was born in Barbados, although Edward was born in Folkestone. His brother was probably the first black commissioned officer in the British Army. As I say, Edward himself was a dentist, and he was not called up to the war because of that. We needed dentists during that time, particularly because so many people who volunteered or who were called up were rejected on the basis of the quality of their teeth and how likely they were to be ill as a result, so dentists were often an exempted occupation. Edward practised as a dentist for a significant number of years, latterly in Glasgow. Again, he was a real black trailblazer—potentially the first black registered dentist in Scotland.

In some of these cases I am saying words such as “potentially”, and I cannot talk about early women graduates of Aberdeen University because the registers just are not there. The rolls are there, but there is not enough information and the research has not been done. The university is looking to rectify that in the future, but, again, there are stories that will maybe never be told, because we just do not have the information.

I want to highlight some of the people in my constituency, and in Aberdeen more widely, who are making a difference, and whose stories might not otherwise be heard. Bertha Yakubu MBE came to Aberdeen in 1993 and really struggled with isolation. Bertha and the African Women’s Group in Aberdeen wrote a book called “African Women Speaking”, one of the most powerful books I have ever read. It is about their experiences of coming to Aberdeen and Scotland, how different it was from the countries they were born in, how different the experience was, and how difficult they found it to integrate, to find fellow feeling, and to find love and support in the community in Aberdeen. It really is a brilliant book, and I urge Members to get hold of it. Bertha now does a huge amount of work supporting women who are suffering from domestic violence by providing them with kinship, love and support, and by just being there for them. That is sometimes what people need to gain the courage to flee.

I want to talk about Ify Anyaegbu, who is in charge of FACEYOUTH, a charity that focuses on mental health. It focuses on young people, and on reducing the disadvantage that they feel in Aberdeen. I have met her on a number of occasions, and she is an absolute force of nature. She will do everything that she can to try to reduce disadvantage in Aberdeen.

Jane Akadiri is the founder of Touch of Love, an empowering and uplifting Christian community in the city. It does a huge amount of good, particularly with disadvantaged groups and people on the lowest incomes.

Florence Igboayaka, the founder of the Period Place, has written a book called “The Period Comic”, which is excellent. If young people aged between eight and 14 want to learn about what periods are like, the comic is a fabulous place to start, and I thoroughly recommend it. She has also created a line of period products for women with heavier period flows, which I understand a lot of African women have. Across the UK, a significant number of women from all heritages are not served well by the period products currently on the market. She also started, in Aberdeen, the “walk to give her a voice”, which is focused on ensuring that women feel safe, and can walk in their communities and talk about the things that matter to them. We should be able to talk about periods and the menopause, and to get the support that we need.

Those are some incredibly inspiring women, and my city would not be the place it is today without all the work that they do in our communities.

[Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady may not know that I was a pilot in the Royal Air Force. I used to do a lot of work advocating for young black people entering STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—industries, so I had the great privilege of visiting Aberdeen on a number of occasions. Unfortunately, I will not be able to visit next week, when the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers holds its annual conference in the hon. Lady’s constituency. The association was created by Dr Nike Folayan MBE and is supported ably by Falayo Osekita, who is a representative of Leonardo. Will the hon. Lady join me in recognising the excellent work that they do, creating a new history for her town?

[Kirsty Blackman]

I absolutely agree. I have met the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers. Unfortunately, I did not realise it was having its conference next week, but I thank the hon. Member for letting me know. It is a fabulous organisation. There continues to be a very tough glass ceiling in engineering. We are getting a huge number of more diverse candidates and graduates coming through in engineering, but at the highest levels of senior management—for example, in the energy industry—we are struggling to make that breakthrough, and to have enough black and minority ethnic individuals, so I support his comments. I support the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers, and I will do everything I can to assist it in breaking that glass ceiling. There is also a glass ceiling for female engineers. There is intersectionality here; it is particularly difficult for black female engineers to get to the highest senior management positions. I will keep doing everything I can to support that organisation and others.

To build on what the Mother of the House said, and what the hon. Member for Brent East said about the protests, the societal views being expressed right now are horrific. However, there has been an undercurrent for a very long time, and this is stuff that people have been thinking. Part of what drove some people to vote for Brexit was views such as, “There’s too much immigration—I don’t want all these people here.” I am sure all Labour Members have read “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists”; they will know that it talks about the Conservatives of the time putting forward the racist narrative that “All your problems are caused by the immigrants. We just need to get rid of them.” This has been a narrative for 100 years, and we still need to counter it—perhaps more so today than ever, and certainly more than we have needed to at any other point in my adult life. We need to do everything we can to stop these racists being allowed to say anything they want.

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[Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Hon. Members may be wondering about my jacket today, and the truth, frankly, is that I am tired of being upstaged by the threads of my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler). However, this jacket is also a symbol of my identity. I got it when I went to Zambia in July in my role as trade envoy to southern Africa. The fabric is what we call chitenge, and it is the same kind of material that my mother, and indeed her mother, Joesphine Hambelele Nakun Tunga, wrapped me in at birth. That visit was important to me because I am proud of my heritage, but my home is here in London. That is my identity—I am British Zambian. That is my story.

Last Friday, I visited Centrepoint in my constituency and had a great conversation about opportunities for young people. One conversation with a young woman has stuck in my mind because of what she said, which was

“I am Black British. That is who I am, and I want you to know both of those things.”

Why is that such an important thing to say? For me, it is about what we are proud of. It is about freedom, democracy and the rule of law.

We must remember that those ideas were first written into the story of this nation on the fields of Runnymede in 1215. Magna Carta laid down the truth that still binds us: that no one, not even the most powerful, is above the law. Those are the foundations on which our democracy was built—the freedoms from which so many nations, such as the United States, derive their own, and the freedoms that underpin the very concept of a free world. They are the principles of democracy for which our country fought in the face of fascism and Nazi Germany in this nation’s finest hour—our greatest generation.

Yet standing quietly above those meadows, looking down on the birthplace of liberty, is another monument: the Commonwealth Air Forces Memorial, which bears the names of more than 20,000 men and women who have no known grave. Above the place where freedom was first signed into existence stands a memorial recording the names of those who gave their lives to defend it.

When I led the Royal Air Force’s ethnic minorities network, we used to visit the memorial every year. We would walk among those names—black, brown; Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu—from across the Commonwealth, remembering the people who came not as visitors but as defenders of Britain, standing shoulder to shoulder against fascism and tyranny. Among them is Noor Inayat Khan, a British Indian woman raised in London who trained as a wireless operator in the Royal Air Force and worked for the Special Operations Executive. She was captured, tortured and executed in Dachau for refusing to betray her comrades. Her final word was the cry of “Liberté”, or freedom—the same freedom signed into being below her memorial on the fields of Runnymede. Her life and her death complete that circle—from the parchment that promised liberty to all peoples to the courage she displayed in preserving it.

Though his name is not carved on the walls of Runnymede, Flight Lieutenant Johnny Smythe stands in that same lineage of service, sacrifice and selflessness. A Sierra Leonean who flew with the Royal Air Force, he was shot down and held in a prisoner of war camp. Yet when he returned to Britain, he chose not to turn away, but to help to rebuild it. Working in the Colonial Office, it was Smythe who conceived the idea of recalling a troopship, the Empire Windrush—a troopship filled with our veterans who had fought for our freedom, who we know as the Pilots of the Caribbean—back to our shores, full of servicemen and nurses. That act gave birth to a new chapter of our shared history. So when hon. Members hear the words “You called…and we came”, let us remember that it was not the voice of a white official, but the voice of a Sierra Leonean man—a black British man and RAF officer who had already fought for his country’s freedom. That is how deeply black history runs within, not beside, British history.

This is how we counter division and exploitation. This is how we undo the false narrative and understanding of our history and our British identity that caused the Windrush scandal and that is enabling our enemies—the enemies of freedom, equality and British values—to mobilise today, because we are now seeing those things regularly online, on our streets and in parts of our media, frankly, that we would have never seen a few short years ago. We are seeing vicious hate speech and open racism. Racists are speaking out with not only impunity, but the sense that they speak for the spirit of the moment, and we must be clear that they do not.

That is what we are fighting against. But what are we fighting for? I think we can see a positive narrative emerging in our communities. I want to give an example from South Woodford, where the community came together after a sequence of events that caused real fear in our community and across Leyton and Wanstead. After the racism and extremist violence we saw during Tommy Robinson’s march last month, the appalling antisemitic attacks in Manchester, the firebombing of the mosque in Peacehaven and the calculated vandalism designed to intimidate—including the flags raised on the viaduct across from the South Woodford Islamic centre—we were brought together by Councillor Joe Hehir, Dr Fahim from the Islamic centre, Rabbi Richard Jacobi from East London and Essex Liberal synagogue and Reverend Dr Elizabeth Lowson from St Mary’s parish church Woodford. Dr Fahim united us with his words, but they were also the words of the broader community and the leadership of South Woodford society, including Pearl, Louise, Rena—and her excellent tea, I must say—Elaine Atkins MBE and Andy Pike. Their simple message was: “Love South Woodford. Hate racism.”

Here is what I think we can do next. We will raise our flags. We will celebrate our synagogues, our mosques, our churches and our community in South Woodford. We will gather together as a community and talk about our history under our flag. We will do that across the constituency, and celebrate with pride all the people in our community, regardless of where they come from. We will celebrate with other migrants like me and our beloved Okan Aslan, who next week will also identify as being British.

If we are serious about tackling hatred, and standing up to those who would tell us that this is not our land, then we must ensure that these stories are not confined to a single month, or to those who already know them, like me. The stories of Noor Inayat Khan and Johnny Smythe, and the people like me who have come after them, must be owned by and taught to and by us all. When every child in this country knows that our history is all of our history, we will not defeat the far right; we will remove the ignorance that fuels and creates it. Ultimately, we need to do that—otherwise, we cannot defeat it.

We are not yet in the same place that Noor Inayat Khan and Johnny Smythe were. We need to defeat the want, ignorance and fear from which hate is drawn. We need to prevent malign actors from exploiting anger and alienation, and the evils that create them. Black history—black British history—is our greatest weapon in doing so.

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[Ben Coleman]

I am most grateful for the correction, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is interesting that my hon. Friend talks about doctors, because honestly there are not that many people in leadership positions in the NHS who are black, and that is another issue that needs to be addressed.

I have used the word “racism”—as we all have—in a way that is perhaps not easy to do everywhere. I have to say, when I first started becoming aware of the huge differences there are in how people are likely to experience health services depending on whether they are black or white, I did not feel at all comfortable using the word “racism”. Sometimes when people say “structural racism” when talking about racism, people will say, “I am not a racist!” but that is not what is being talked about, so it is very difficult to enter this conversation.

I remember when I was on the council I was once on a big Zoom call with 150 people to discuss the inequalities work we were doing. A black woman talked a lot about micro-aggressions, and I asked her, “When you are talking about micro-aggressions, aren’t you talking about racism?” She answered, “Yes, yes. But you can say that. I can’t.” So I think it is incumbent on people like me—a white middle-class gentleman of a certain age—to be allies, as many hon. Friends and hon. Members here are being, and to stand up and talk about these things and name them for what they are.

We can effect change. We can do the radical thing of implementing the change that is needed, but to do that we need to have leadership that wants to actually effect the change. We have found, sadly, that black women facing poor outcomes is shaped by systemic failings in leadership and accountability as well as in training and data collection. We need senior leaders to be held accountable for racial health inequalities. That means that they need to be aware of them, which means they need the data. We need Care Quality Commission inspections to specifically assess equity in care delivery. Trust boards should be specifically responsible for monitoring and addressing disparities, and performance metrics should include equity indicators. That all sounds terribly onerous, but it is not. It can become part of the normal way of doing things; it just has to be introduced at some point. As I said, these are not radical suggestions, but to do them would be radical.

Indeed, the really radical thing to do—this came out of the Committee—is just to listen properly to the women needing maternity services. I saw a terrible programme during covid where a woman was talking about her daughter, who was 20 and had gone to see her doctor. She was talking about being in immense pain. The doctor said, “Well, black women have differently shaped cervixes, so that is probably why.” She died in childbirth. That sort of thing happens all the time; we just do not talk about it all the time. It has to stop. We need to listen to black patients.

Black patients talking to us said, “I had pain. I reported pain and I reported symptoms—I just wasn’t believed.” Their concerns were dismissed. That pattern appears not just in maternal health services but right across healthcare.

[Mr Calvin Bailey]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. It is important to highlight the simple things like listening to people, but we must also get over our inherent reluctance to speak about health inequities when we are speaking to each other. Prostate cancer, for example affects one in four black men, whereas it impacts one in eight white men, partly because we do not discuss the fact that it is more prevalent in black men and we need to conduct diagnosis much earlier. Does he agree that if you are a black man or you have a history of prostate cancer in your family, you should go and get a prostate prostate-specific antigen test as early as possible—as early as 45? I will not make reference to my own age or the fact that I have had a test myself.

[Ben Coleman]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend—my youthful friend—for that comment. I could not agree more. When I became aware of this problem back when I was a councillor, we instituted a programme to build trust within the black and minority ethnic community in the NHS. As a result, we had hundreds of conversations in the community with people from the NHS and with people of colour. One black gentleman, who I think was a little older than 45—he was probably not far from my own age—went and had a prostate test as a result, and it was found that he had prostate cancer. If he had not had the test, who knows what the situation would be these days. I therefore fully support my hon. Friend’s call for everybody to have prostate cancer tests. I have had one myself, and fortunately, like him, I think things are all right.

When we get feedback from patients, we need formal mechanisms for registering that—it should not be done in the typical ad hoc, amateur way—and we need to co-produce the changes with the people we are actually meant to be there for. Also, when people complain about discriminatory treatment, we need to consider that seriously, and the NHS needs to respond in a much more open-hearted, open-handed and open-minded way than I am told it often does. The Committee did the inquiry and came up with specific recommendations that affect black maternal health, but I think they spread right across the piece of black people not getting as good healthcare as they should, and as white people do.

I end on a specific example of something quite close to my heart because of friends: sickle cell disease. As we are talking about black history, I would like to pay tribute to Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, a wonderful woman and the UK’s first sickle cell nurse. She has done so much to educate me and other people and improve services in this country.

People may not know much about sickle cell if they are not black. It causes intense pain and organ damage. Crudely, cells get shaped like sickles, and it can cause strokes; it can even cause early death. It is often overlooked, mainly because it affects black and minority ethnic people.

Imperial College healthcare NHS trust is currently running a wonderful programme that serves my constituents in Chelsea and Fulham. It is one of only seven centres in the country piloting what is called a renal haematology triage unit, which is one of those sexy NHS titles, but it just means if a person suddenly get a crisis and needs to be seen swiftly, they do not have to wait for hours and hours in accident and emergency; they can get swift pain relief. That is vital for making sure that the problem does not get seriously dangerous seriously quickly. I went to visit it and talked to patients and staff. It is a terrific centre that has made a huge difference to people’s lives, as they are able to go to work and look after their children more easily. It is inspirational—but, sadly, it is a pilot. In the normal world, we do a pilot, we see if it works and, if it does, we try to find the funding long term. Often, in the NHS it means, “We have got a bit of money left over. What can we do?” or it means, “Let’s do a project for a few years and call it a pilot.” We need to keep the funding for those seven projects across the country, which are offering urgent, swift pain relief for people with sickle cell, after April. That is one thing that I am working on at the moment. We have to show everybody that they matter equally. We have to build trust.

So let us build trust, let us acknowledge the harm that has been done and let us do the work on training, comprehensive data and workforce issues. Let us name racism and tackle it head on. Let us listen to black patients and ensure that services for conditions such as sickle cell are as important to everybody as they are to just a few. We cannot change history—we can recognise it, as my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), who has just left the Chamber, said—but we can change the future. We have the evidence and the recommendations. We know what needs to be done. I have not said anything new or anything that will have shocked the House. The only thing that is shocking is that there is often so little willpower to make the obvious and necessary changes that are needed. I will keep fighting for that to happen, and I hope that everyone in the Chamber will fight alongside me.

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[Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to respond to the debate on behalf of my party. I thank hon. Members for their powerful, important and wide-ranging contributions. It is clear that we share a commitment across the House to recognise the achievements of black Britons and to address the challenges that remain.

The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities concluded that Britain is a model as a multi-ethnic society with shared national values, and

“a beacon to the rest of Europe and the world”.

That is not to ignore some of the issues that have been raised in the Chamber, but to acknowledge rightly our progress and potential. If any country can continue to advance equality of opportunity for black people, it is this one.

As has been mentioned, the Leader of the Opposition is the first black woman to lead a major political party in the UK. As we have agreed today, black British history is a powerful weapon to challenge racism, tackle underachievement, tackle inequalities in health, education and justice, and ensure the economic opportunities that we want and desire for all our constituents. That was drawn out by Members across the Chamber.

Turning to the contributions, it is a pleasure to be in this the Mother of the House, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), because I remember watching her on the telly on “This Week”. That was my favourite show, and I very much enjoyed watching her. It was pertinent and valuable that she drew out the importance of migrants who support our public services, and the disparities and disadvantages in educational outcomes that remain for too many black children.

The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) rightly raised the maternal health disparities. To respond to the concerns she raised that relate to my party’s tenure, we did launch a maternity disparities taskforce in February 2022 to explore inequalities in maternity care in order, vitally, to improve outcomes for women. It focused on disparities faced by women from ethnic minorities and those living in deprived areas, who saw a lack of parity with others. We launched a £50 million fund to tackle health inequalities in maternity care, as part of our women’s health priorities of 2024, to build a consortium to deliver research, which has been raised today, and capacity over the next five years. I hope the Minister will undertake to hold to account other Departments to ensure that that is built on. I am sure that she will take that opportunity after the debate, especially as it has been mentioned by Members across the Chamber.

The hon. Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler), who mentioned the fact that we co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on women in Parliament, spoke bravely and movingly again about the direct racism that she receives. That is abhorrent, unacceptable, unwarranted and unbelievable in this day and age. I love the “I love myself” affirmation—I think I might start telling myself that in the mirror every morning. Maybe we should all do so if we need to get away from the kind of rot we get on social media. I absolutely agree with the points she made about one particular party that is trying to take people back to some kind of past and is offering a mirage. It needs to pick a side—capitalist, socialist or populist—but it is not a direction that I want to go in.

The hon. Member also mentioned that there is no joy or energy in racism; it is pure negativity. She might know that I love my music, so I am happy that DJ Love Spoon might be able to make an appearance at her event. The quote that she read about making some noise was exactly right.

The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) is not in his place at the moment—

[Mr Calvin Bailey]

Ahem!

[Mims Davies]

Oh sorry, he has moved—how could I miss him in that jacket? Talking about making some noise, the hon. Member’s jacket has made a splash in the Chamber today. He rightly spoke about pride in being black and British, and that was brilliant to hear.

The hon. Member and others spoke about prostate cancer rates for black men. The Prostate Cancer Support Organisation recently held an event in my patch with the East Grinstead and District Lions club. Just last Saturday, more than 1,000 men came to the Meridian Hall for the seventh annual event to get checked. Sometimes it is in those less formal places that people can have conversations that tackle stigma and concerns around health. As we have heard from other Members, sometimes it is people like Brian and his team starting those conversations that gives people the confidence to go to the NHS and other more formal structures. That gives me the opportunity to gently but I think rightly challenge the men’s and women’s health strategies. This is not just about waiting lists; it is about real interventions and change for people.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) mentioned the Scottish word for “cuddle”. The Welsh word, “cwtsh”, was quite a new one for me. She spoke about everyday miracles. I think there is a danger, in all this negativity, that we miss those everyday miracles in our constituencies. That is not to mention the miraculousness of dentistry over the decades—over history—and how vital those people have been to us.

The hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) rightly spent much of his time reflecting on the value of our Select Committees and of addressing the outcomes for black people in the NHS. I urge him to work with his party on the issues of birth and women’s health. The Government rightly say that they are committed to the women’s health strategy. Again, I implore Ministers to remain committed to working together on that, because we know what a difference it can make.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about being radical—he said that being radical is about implementation. They say that the first iteration of policy is operations, so let us get this going so that it can really make change. There are so many changes in NHS England. Rightly, we are all taking a forensic look at that, but there is a lack of interest in outcomes for Wales, and a lot of money is going in directions that we might not always be comfortable with, so let us use this opportunity to challenge inequalities.

The Minister for Equalities mentioned the ethnicity pay gap reporting. It is vital that we fully understand the scrutiny and consider potential legislation.

I know that for the hon. Member for Brent East— I hope that I can call her my hon. Friend—this is so personal. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and many of us will have been wearing pink on various days and highlighting events across Parliament. Women from all backgrounds need real advice. We talked about stigma around prostate cancer and black men’s health, but we also need to ensure that for women there are conversations about breast health and breast cancer. Sadly, we are still seeing poorer breast cancer outcomes for women in ethnic minority communities. Breastcancernow.org has a brilliant symptoms checker for every woman to use. When I was working with Wellbeing of Women on issues related to the menopause for black women, it struck me that the outcomes and workplace experiences are still too wide-ranging. This is a great opportunity to raise those issues.

The hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) mentioned “No Blacks, No Irish” signs. My dad was the main contractor for Brighton and Hove council in the ’70s and ’80s, and he employed many Irish people. In fact, I thought that most people spoke with an Irish accent. It was quite a surprise to me growing up that there was a Sussex accent, which is remarkably different. I remember those days of “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet” and so on. The hon. Gentleman was absolutely right. That was a real experience for families and it shaped people. I thank him for sharing that.

The hon. Member for Watford (Matt Turmaine) highlighted local organisations, trust, and the approach of churches—that is important. The Hope church in East Grinstead does great work in my patch, particularly on job search and helping men in particular not to feel alone.

To conclude, let us work with energy in Black History Month to boost real opportunity across society and produce real outcomes, real change and real understanding. I say that MP stands not for Member of Parliament but for “most persistent”, because our job is to stand up for the voiceless. We must confront racism and make a direct difference. By being true to the theme of this Black History Month, which is “Standing Firm in Power and Pride”, and through our strength, resilience and leadership in this House and across our communities, we will see real change. That change lies in all our hands and will happen by us working together.