The Prime Minister said the transparency rules should prompt
institutions such as Oxford to work harder to broaden their intake and warned
the police, the courts and the armed forces they also had to act.
Education chiefs have been summoned
to Downing Street on Monday for talks with Business Secretary Sajid Javid to
discuss why young black men are more likely to be in prison than studying at a
top university.
It comes as Mr Cameron has hired a
leading black Labour MP to investigate whether the police and court system is racially
biased.
David Lammy will lead a sweeping
review into why black people are more likely to be in prison than at a top
university, and why black criminals are given harsher sentences than white
offenders.
Mr Lammy’s review is expected to
report on his findings and recommend reforms to the Ministry of Justice in the
spring of next year.
Mr Cameron said:
“If you’re black, you’re more likely to be in a prison cell
than studying at a top university. And if you’re black, it seems you’re more
likely to be sentenced to custody for a crime than if you’re white. We should
investigate why this is and how we can end this possible discrimination.
"Only one in 10 of the poorest white boys go into
higher education at all.
"There are no black generals in our armed forces and
just 4 per cent of chief executives in the FTSE 100 are from ethnic minorities.
"What does this say about modern Britain? Are these
just the symptoms of class divisions or a lack of equal opportunity? Or is it
something worse - something more ingrained, institutional and insidious?"
The UK had come a long way, he
added, "but there is much more to do, and these examples I mention should
shame our country and jolt us to action".
"I don't care whether it's overt, unconscious or
institutional - we've got to stamp it out," he added, warning it would
otherwise only "feed those who preach a message of grievance and
victimhood".
Mr Cameron rejected what he called
"politically correct, contrived and unfair solutions" such as quotas
but said it was "striking" that Oxford's 2014 intake of more than
2,500 included only 27 black students.
"I know the reasons are complex, including poor
schooling, but I worry that the university I was so proud to attend is not
doing enough to attract talent from across our country," he said.
The new rules will require routine
publication of data on applicants, broken down by course, gender, ethnicity and
socio-economic background.
His intervention is likely to
further fuel protests by some students at Oxford over the refusal to remove a
statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes from the front of Oriel college they
say represents racism and oppression.
Mr Cameron said public institutions
needed to "dig deeper", warning he also intended action to eradicate
"the stubborn problem of under-representation in our police and armed
forces".
"It's not enough to simply say you are open to all. Ask
yourselves: are you going that extra mile to really show people that yours can
be a place for everyone, regardless of background?"
Mr Lammy, who wrote a book on the
2011 riots that were sparked by the killing of a black man by the police in his
Tottenham constituency, has been tasked with rooting out the causes of "disgraceful"
gulfs in sentencing treatment.
"It's disgraceful that if you're black, it seems you're
more likely to be sentenced to custody for a crime than if you're white,"
the PM said.
"We should investigate why this is and how we can end
this possible discrimination. That's why I have asked David Lammy MP to lead a
review of the over-representation of BME communities in the criminal justice
system.
"And this will include possible sentencing and
prosecutorial disparity."
No comments:
Post a Comment