What’s REALLY in the race report the Left was too busy ranting to read

A riveting snapshot of multi-racial Britain

DESPITE a landmark report this week concluding that Britain is a model for other countries when dealing with matters of race, a chorus of voices from the Left have condemned its findings.

Among the most inflammatory attacks on the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities’ report were that it ‘sweeps the history of slavery under the table’, and that it is ‘patronising’ and ‘historically illiterate’.

But such comments gloss over detailed research in the report that provides a fascinating insight into today’s multi-racial Britain.

Led by education expert Dr Tony Sewell, the commission did not claim that racism doesn’t exist in the UK but that racial inequalities have narrowed in education and employment.

It argued that many problems blamed on racism are complicated, varied and linked to tradition, economics, class and other social factors – as this snapshot of the findings in the 258-page report makes clear.

⬤ POVERTY affects educational achievement more than race. Poor pupils lag more than two years behind in areas such as Blackpool, Knowsley and Plymouth – all almost exclusively white.

⬤ THE pay-gap between white and ethnic-minority groups has closed to 2.3 per cent. Chinese and Indian employees now earn ‘notably more’ than the white average.

⬤ LIFE expectancy and mortality rates show that ethnic minorities do better overall than the white population and have better outcomes for many of the 25 leading causes of death.

⬤ STATISTICS show that last year, 15 per cent of all families were single-parent – but 63 per cent of black Caribbean children, and 43 per cent of black African children, grow up in one-parent households. The figure is just six per cent for Indian families.

⬤ ALTHOUGH ethnic minorities represent 16 per cent of the population, nearly 50 per cent of doctors working in NHS hospitals are from an ethnic minority – as are 21 per cent of lawyers.

⬤ POOR white boys achieve the lowest exam grades. Only 39.1 per cent of white boys got a ‘strong pass’ or above in English and Maths in 2019, compared with 49 per cent of Asian boys.

⬤ LAST year, white students were least likely to go to university (32.6 per cent), compared with nearly half of black pupils and 71 per cent of Chinese. However, ethnic-minority students are more likely to drop out, achieve lower exam results or have lower earnings after graduating.

⬤ THE children of recent migrants perform particularly well at school, but long-term analysis suggests that such attainment tails off in subsequent generations.

⬤ THE proportion of people, according to opinion polls, who believe that you must be white to be ‘truly British’ has declined from 18 per cent in 2006 to seven per cent now.

⬤ RATHER than ‘racism’ being a factor, employers may hire in their own image and choose new staff based on their ‘cultural fit’, or ‘chemistry’ because of ‘affinity bias’. The report says: ‘All people, not just white people, are subject to these biases.’

⬤ BLACK Caribbean and Arab women earn more on average per hour (£12.09 and £12.49 respectively – based on figures for 2019) than white British women, who got £11.21 an hour. l BLACK people are three times more likely to be arrested than white people – but juries are not more likely to convict ethnic minority defendants.

⬤ GANGS and gang-related violence are linked to broken families, and not restricted to black communities. In the North of England, they are largely linked with white communities.

⬤ BLACK African men were almost 3.4 times more likely to die of Covid-19 in the first wave of the pandemic than white British men. But this was related to an increased risk of infection – living in multigenerational households, working in public-facing jobs – rather than from any difference in treatment or their ethnicity alone.

⬤ SOME ethnic-minority groups live longer and are less likely to be diagnosed with cancer than white people, despite living in more deprived communities.

⬤ RACISM and discrimination is not widespread in the health system, as is claimed. Both black and white patients report being equally satisfied with treatment.