Labour launches bold plans for a new race equality act

A Labour government would give stronger legal protections for equal pay for black, Asian and minority ethnic workers, according to draft plans for a new race equality act seen by Sky News.

Radical plans enacting protections for those who face “dual discrimination” are also outlined as well as mandatory ethnic minority pay reporting, tackling health disparities and the introduction of a new Windrush commissioner.

But campaigners and some involved in drafting the plans are concerned that immigration is not substantially mentioned.

The taskforce had discussed repealing the Nationality and Borders Act to ensure that anybody who arrives in the UK as a child cannot be deported and to block the government’s ability to revoke citizenship. But this is understood to have been shelved and won’t be part of the plans.

A number of Labour frontbenchers, legal experts and community groups have been discussing ways to deliver a new race equality act since Labour first announced their intention in 2021 on the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd. They said they would make the eradication of structural racism a “defining cause for the next Labour government”.

A taskforce was created, led by Baroness Doreen Lawrence, and they consulted on these plans up until last July when subsequent meetings were either delayed or cancelled at the last minute.

Last week some stakeholders have had one-on-one meetings with the shadow equality minister Annalise Dodds in preparation for the launch today, but some are surprised Labour’s plans for the act have progressed without a meeting of the taskforce in over six months.

Some black MPs say they haven’t seen the plans yet including Labour’s first black female MP Diane Abbott, who told The Voice newspaper: “I haven’t actually seen the draft race equality act and no one has.”

Another MP told Sky News that not formally consulting the Black Parliamentary Labour Party had been a “bit of a p***take”.

Jacqueline McKenzie, a human rights lawyer who is on the taskforce, said Labour’s entire plan is at risk of failing without enforcement – and she’s yet to get any reassurance from the party that these plans have any teeth.

She added at the moment it seems as if the party is “just doing something for the sake of doing something”.

Sky News understands all recommendations in the Lammy review will be included as well as recommendations in Wendy Williams’ Windrush review including one the Home Office has currently tabled – to have a Migrant Tsar. Though Labour will rebrand this as a Windrush commissioner, in what some are seeing as a way for the party to distance itself from immigration issues.

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More eye-catching proposals include race training for police staff, as well as creating a body to collect data to assess ethnic minority health outcomes.

There is also expected to be a drive to eradicate specific health disparities such as maternity deaths which are four times higher for black women than for white women.

Kate Osamor, who was the only black woman MP on the taskforce was suspended last week pending an investigation after saying Gaza should be remembered as genocide in a post about Holocaust Memorial Day. It is unclear whether she will be part of the plans this week.

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Nels Abbey, a race equality campaigner, said Labour’s race equality announcements are very welcome. Though he remarked “the problem the Labour Party has is one of credibility”.

“As a result, the announcements risk being dismissed as ‘just words’, at best. And many ethnic minorities are struggling to hear the Labour Party’s words when they can see what they’re doing,” he said.

His thinktank Uppity hosted an event this week entitled “Is Labour working for ethnic minorities?” where he said it was made alarmingly clear that many ethnic minorities have developed a “discernible level of distrust and disdain for Keir Starmer‘s party”.

At the end of the debate roughly 85% of the room disagreed with the statement that “Labour is working for ethnic minorities”, while roughly 65% of the room believed it was time for ethnic minorities to ditch the Labour Party altogether.

Ms Dodds, shadow women and equalities secretary, said: “It has never been more important to deliver race equality. Inequality has soared under the Conservatives and too many black, Asian and ethnic minority families are working harder and harder for less and less. This is holding back their families and holding back the economy.”

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