Board of Deputies commends Parliamentary report: “Black people, racism and human rights”

Responding to the “Black people, racism and human rights” report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Board of Deputies Vice-President Amanda Bowman said:

“The Board of Deputies of British Jews is committed to solidarity with Black communities, which face forms of structural racism with centuries-old roots. In that spirit we commend the work of the Joint Committee on Human Rights in its investigation into the major inequalities faced by Black people in health, criminal justice, nationality and immigration, and democracy. The Board of Deputies has endorsed the social justice manifesto from the Jewish Council for Racial Equality (JCORE), including calls on Government to protect the Race Disparity Unit, which monitors the extent of racial inequality in Britain, and to provide funding for a permanent memorial to the victims of the transatlantic slave trade. Now, we further endorse the recommendations of the Joint Committee, in particular that: the lessons learned from previous reviews under successive governments must, finally, be acted upon; the Equality and Human Rights Commission ought to be further empowered in its indispensable work, by Government increasing its funding and strengthening its enforcement powers; and that the Government should consider whether changes are required to equality legislation to make it more effective as a tool to enforce Black people’s human rights. With the backdrop of the killing of George Floyd, it is of the utmost importance that these changes are implemented so that Black people in Britain have their human rights fully protected with no caveats.”