Ministers will drop the term black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME), beef up local scrutiny of police stop and search and draft a model history curriculum to teach Britain’s “complex” past in response to the Sewell report on racial disparities.
Launched as a response to the Black Lives Matter protests, the Sewell report caused controversy when it was published last year for broadly rejecting institutional racism as an explanation for many of the challenges faced by ethnic minorities in the UK.
In the government’s response, called Inclusive Britain, ministers acknowledge that racism exists but stress the importance of other factors, too.
Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, said: “I strongly believe that Britain is the fairest and most open-minded country in the world, but there is more we can do to foster inclusion and enable everyone to reach their full potential.”
She added: “The causes behind racial disparities are complex and often misunderstood. Our new strategy is about action, not rhetoric, and will help create a country where a person’s race, social or ethnic background is no barrier to achieving their ambitions.”
Taiwo Owatemi, Labour’s shadow equalities minister, said: “It’s disgraceful that we’ve had to wait almost a year for the government’s response – and worse still that it agrees with the original report’s denial of structural racism. Boris Johnson’s Conservatives have once again failed to deliver meaningful action.”
Inclusive Britain recommends dropping the term BAME across government, as it is too much of a catch-all, and gathering more fine-grained data to inform future policymaking.
The report sets out a long list of other policies, some new and others already in place.
These include the Home Office working with police and crime commissioners to draw up a new framework to ensure that police powers, including stop and search and the use of force, are subject to more scrutiny by local communities.
Another plan, which had been trailed by the education minister, Robin Walker, is to draw up a “model curriculum” to “help pupils understand the intertwined nature of British and global history, and their own place within it”.
To be developed by 2024 by a panel of historians and school leaders, the materials in the curriculum will not be compulsory, but will “stand as an exemplar for a knowledge-rich, coherent approach to the teaching of history”.
Sewell’s report was amended last year after a backlash over its suggestion that there was a new story to be taught about the “slave period”, which was not just about “profit and suffering”.
A footnote was added to clarify: “This is to say that in the face of the inhumanity of slavery, African people preserved their humanity and culture. This includes the story of slave resistance.”
Other plans in the Inclusive Britain report include publishing new guidance for employers about how to implement positive discrimination policies in the workplace and convening a new Inclusion at Work Panel made up of experts to examine workplace equality training.
The Department for Education, working with the race disparity unit in the Cabinet Office, will also look at what lessons can be learned from the multi-academy schools trusts that are “most successful at bridging achievement gaps for different ethnic groups and raising overall life chances”.
Existing government policies on everything from using more out-of-court disposals to deal with first-time drug users to tackling online safety are also included.
Badenoch was moved into Michael Gove’s Levelling Up department last September, taking the equalities brief with her.
Launching Inclusive Britain, Gove suggested that tackling racial disparities is part of his levelling up agenda. “Central to Levelling Up is equality – giving everyone the same access to a great education, a well-paid job and a good standard of living – regardless of their background,” he said.
Tony Sewell, chief executive of the educational charity Generating Genius, welcomed the government’s response to his report, saying: “This is a major step towards a fairer, more open and more inclusive society and, importantly, focuses on the practical actions that will improve people’s lives.”
The Sewell report was commissioned when the government came under intense pressure to respond to the groundswell of support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK in summer 2020, with protests across many cities after the death of George Floyd at the hands of US police.
After its publication, it was reported that large parts of the report – in particular the denial that institutional or structural racism exist – had been authored by No 10.
