Simon Wooley, Operation Black Vote
I want you to be inspired to believe that
we can change our world. I think we must take responsibility that,
yes, we want others to speak with us, I would argue never wholly and solely for us but alongside.
We, as black and minority ethnic communities, must drive that agenda.
I mean, it would be bizarre and perverse if men were driving the women’s agenda. Right?
It’s not quite right. We can do it ourselves, thank you very much, you men.
And likewise for the race equality agenda. So the conversation that we’re going to
have broadly speaking is that we need to have talented black faces in all areas at all levels
of civic and the political institutions. We bring a history, we bring a sensibility,
and we bring a dynamism to the table. And as with women around the table, everybody
benefits. It’s exactly the same for black and minority
ethnic communities. For us it has to be a two-way street. My brothers
and sisters here have to start believing in themselves.
You have to stand up and be counted. You have to take your place, you have to be strong,
and you have to be clear about the vision. It’s not about you, it’s about what you
can do. That’s our role—to be stronger than we think we can be.
Dr Anna Dickson, Vice Chair of ParliREACH, Parliament’s BAME workplace equality network
One of the things I do is I think it is everybody’s responsibility to support and promote equality,
diversity and inclusion in the workplace. That’s why I became a member of ParliREACH,
our workplace equality network, which began in Parliament only 3 years ago but we now
have 176 members. There are for wens and ParliREACH is just
one of them. It was established to increase awareness and
appreciation of race, ethnicity and cultural heritage issues in parliament and it also
provides a platform where underrepresented groups can find support and where equality
objectives can be progressed. One of the things that I do for ParliREACH,
my main in role in their committee, is to organise a reverse mentoring programme.
RMP is a programme whereby we have members of ParliREACH, of black and minority ethnic
backgrounds, who agree to mentor a senior manager, usually not from a black and minority
ethnic background, and talk about what it’s like to work in parliament as an ethnic minority,
some of the issues, how parliament looks to somebody from a different perspective.
Another hat that I have on, is that I’m a ‘Diversity Champion’, which is about
promoting diversity in the workplace. There are other diversity champions in different
departments and we kind of get together and we talk to each other and we say ‘what’re
the issues, what do we want to focus on’. So one of the things I’ve recently started
is—I don’t know if you know how select committees work, but they bring in people
to give evidence to select committees and the Members ask them questions, and they answer.
And we’re beginning to look at who we invite to give evidence because it’s very easy
to invite the usual suspects, the people who are CEOs of organisations, top people, but
they may not be very diverse and you’re always speaking to the same people.
So we thought, how do we change that dynamic? Okay change is going to be difficult, it’s
going to take a long time, so we’re only on the first step of that process.
One of the things we’re doing is trying to reach out more to different people and
say, “Hm, if you send me a more diverse candidate, you can have two places” or “Can
you think of somebody else to send other than your CEO” for example, or “Do you have
a woman on your board? Could she come and represent the company?” So just trying to
ask them to think about their witnesses. And we’re also going to start monitoring
who we ask to come and give oral evidence because we need a baseline to then begin to
try and build up things like that.
L’myah Ross-Walcott, politics student at Aston University,
former placement student at House of Parliament ParliREACH, Parliament’s BAME workplace equality network
Whilst working with ParliREACH I got involved
with the reverse mentoring programme that Anna was just speaking about, and I got paired
with the Clerk of the House of Commons, who is David Natzler.
He’s kind of in charge with the operations of the entire House of Commons service.
Whilst working with him I decided to take the role really seriously and conducted my
own individual project in which I sent out questionnaires and interviewed various people
from the BME population just to get an insight as to how ethnic minorities perceived the
House of Commons service. So I wrote my own report and that is currently
being circulated around the senior management positions of the House of Commons service
at the moment. That’s really about Parliament can increase
its diversity. So that’s why any of your views at the moment
today would be really useful because this report is currently in the process of being
published, so any last additions at the moment would be really useful.
Any information that you really want to share or deem important, do feel free.
Anyone here who wants to make an impact in the BME community, I definitely would recommend
participating in some way shape or form with the Houses of Parliament—whether it be through
the House of Lords, whether it be through submitting evidence, there’s a variety of
different routes through which you can get involved
I think any assumptions that people may make regarding the houses of Parliament, whether
it be inclusive or not, those kinds of impressions should not put you off in any way shape or
form because there are support systems there in place for those kinds of issues.
I don’t think anything should deter people from making a change in society either. Thank
you.