The Race Disparity Audit and its Ethnicity Facts and Figures website have been made public, in October 2017.
Here’s our response.
The Equality and Diversity Forum welcomes the launch of the Race Disparity Audit and its Ethnicity Facts and Figures website. It will enable civil society, researchers, policymakers and community members to have a detailed picture of life in the UK for people of different ethnicities. And it will help shape more effective policy solutions.
In light of disparities the audit has uncovered, we call upon the government to develop robust policy measures to tackle the disproportionate outcomes for different ethnic groups in the UK. It is time to implement a cross-departmental race equality strategy to facilitate rapid progress, particularly in key areas such as education, employment and criminal justice.
The audit shows just how far we still have to go to achieve race equality in practice, and how we can’t afford to lose the legal protections we have in place. As we move towards leaving the EU, it will be vitally important that we maintain and reinforce these protections. We have called for changes to the EU Withdrawal Bill to ensure legal continuity. In particular we believe the government should introduce a constitutional right to equality.
This would safeguard the essential rights and freedoms that will be needed to underpin the government’s efforts to tackle racial inequality and build a country that works for everyone.
