Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he is taking to tackle economic inequality among black and minority ethnic communities.

Ensuring people from black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds can find work and progress through the labour market is an important step in tackling economic inequality. The Government has embarked on an ambitious programme to increase opportunity in the labour market for all those from BME backgrounds. This includes increasing employment rates, improving access to universities and ensuring more people from BME backgrounds start an apprenticeship.

As part of this, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is chairing a new Inter-Ministerial Group tasked with improving opportunity and progression in the labour market for those from BME backgrounds. The Government has also asked Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith to undertake a review into the obstacles faced by BME groups in the labour market, from recruitment through to the executive level. This will complement Sir John Parker’s review considering BME representation at the very highest levels of business.