Racial Discrimination in Schools
Debate between Kieran Mullan and Kirsten Oswald(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Fovargue.
I am really glad to be here in Westminster Hall today. This is a debate that people might not expect to find a Scottish Member participating in, but it is on such an important subject that I decided to come along anyway. I thought that the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) made a really powerful and compelling, and very clear-headed, speech to introduce the debate. That matters because it is such an important subject that it requires that kind of clear explanation about what is happening and why it matters.
Racism in society in general is obviously deeply troubling and damaging, but racism in our schools and educational settings is perhaps even worse. These are children, at formative points in their lives, in an environment where they should feel completely safe and where they should be able to relax and to learn, being put into situations that make that much harder or even impossible. The knock-on impacts throughout people’s lives if they have had that very difficult experience at school, which has perhaps caused them not to fulfil the potential they have, should be clear to all of us. That is something that should occupy our minds.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) often makes salient points in debates, and he talked about the importance of welcoming people who have come here from other places. Obviously, that is not a direct read-across to racism in schools, but it is an important point to make. We should welcome diversity, difference and those who have arrived from other places. I reflect, with a degree of sadness, on some of the narrative that we hear from the Government Benches at the moment—the “stop the boats” narrative and “the hostile environment”. Such things do not happen in isolation—[Interruption.] I can hear the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan) chuntering; I do not know whether he is referring to what I am saying.
