Equality Bill [Lords]

We have had Clement Attlee and Lord Halifax. So goodness knows who we are going to hear from next. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that quote, and I shall use it in my next speech. The issue of policy and decision making will be important. The proposed body will be charged with making policy. The point of having a race committee is that black and Asian people, it is to be hoped, will be able to decide on policy that affects black and Asian people. There will be a voice for them and somewhere for them to go. This is not happening at present. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister—this is not meant personally to her because she has been a Minister for only the past year—to quote Mario Puzo, that to criticise people is not the business of politics. It is not personal. I think that we have failed in terms of the equality agenda after eight years. I expected more from our Government than we have given. We need to do more. We need more than good speeches about more black people here and more Asian people there. We need to have good laws, which I hope that we shall introduce as part of the measure that is before us. In addition, we must have bodies that will be able to allow the communities to be able to represent themselves. I am sorry that that is not happening. That is lamentable. Only this morning, there is an article in The Times about the number of police officers who are not only joining the police service but leaving it. The police service had 4,629 ethnic minority police officers in 2004. That was an 18 per cent. increase on the previous year. Hooray. That is a fantastic record. However, 17.8 per cent. of black and Asian recruits in 2004 resigned or were dismissed within six months of starting their jobs, compared with 7.7 per cent. of white officers. Last year, 12.6 per cent. of ethnic minority recruits dropped out of the service within six months compared with 7.6 per cent. of white officers, and the figures continue. In that public service—one that is constantly monitored—to see that sort of reaction and to hear stories of racism against police officers makes me wonder what we have been doing over the past generation. We certainly should have done much more. These are lamentable figures for any Government. For me, someone who is passionately committed to the Labour Government—when I told my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Sarwar) that I was tabling the amendment, he said, ““Why are you doing so? You are part of the payroll vote even though you are not on the payroll””—so loyal am I to the Government. That worries me intensely. I do not mean that as a slight to the Minister because she is not yet on the payroll vote, even though she will be voting for the Bill’s passage through the House. I think that we have let people down. We have lost the plot on equality. We have only reacted since 7 July last year, because we discovered that some people who are trying to destroy the good race relations that we enjoy in this country do not come from Lebanon, have not been trained in Syria, and do not have Iranian connections. They were born and bred in Leeds. That is the challenge for us—which body will take up that mantle and try to deal with that fundamental issue? Will it be the new commission for integration and citizenship? Will it be part of the Phillips review? Will it be the Commission for Racial Equality, or what has been left of it in the past 18 months? Will it be Lee Jasper and the Greater London Assembly? Will it be Simon Woolley and the 1990 Trust, or Operation Black Vote? Who will accept that mantle? The hon. Member for Daventry talked about Lord Halifax dividing and ruling, but if we divide the community in that way and do not give its members a focus it is a recipe for disaster.