Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the statement by the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent published on 27 January 2023.

The Government will formally respond to the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent once their full report has been published later this year.

We are pleased that the Working Group recognised as good practice our ground-breaking Inclusive Britain strategy, which is focussed on closing outcome gaps between people from different ethnic backgrounds, and our world-leading use of data.

We reject, however, the majority of the Working Group’s preliminary findings and the suggestion that racism in the UK is structural, institutional and systemic.

We are proud that the UK is an open, tolerant and welcoming country but we are not complacent and do recognise some people experience racism in Britain. We are very clear this has no place in our society and must be rooted out.

The data shows that in recent years we have made great strides in closing the gaps in racial and ethnic disparities in a number of critical areas. Our work continues a-pace to deliver the 74 actions in our Inclusive Britain strategy - which span the areas of education, health, crime and policing, technology and the workplace.