Black-led businesses could be given more support to procure lucrative government contracts by a future Labour government as the party refines its offer to ethnic minority voters ahead of the next election.
Labour’s race equality task force, led by Baroness Doreen Lawrence, hopes to ensure that black-led groups get the chance to access a fair share of the billions of pounds paid out each year through government contracts, according to The Voice newspaper.
The Guardian understands that the task force, co-chaired by Labour party chair Anneliese Dodds, has also proposed introducing mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting for firms with more than 250 staff, with the aim of closing the existing gap on salaries.
Task force member and human rights lawyer Jacqueline Mckenzie told the newspaper: “There are no black firms that currently benefit at all [from government contracts], African heritage firms.”
A number of Labour front benchers, legal experts and community groups are understood to have been discussing ways to deliver a new race equality act over the last few months.
Other issues under discussion include reducing school exclusion rates and repealing the Nationality and Borders Act to ensure that anybody who arrives in the UK as a child, as in the case of so many of the Windrush generation, cannot be deported, as well as blocking the government’s ability to revoke citizenship.
Dodds said: “Labour will make tackling structural racial inequality a key mission in government by introducing a Race Equality Act to deliver security, prosperity and respect for everyone in this country.
“As the next general election draws closer and Labour prepares for government, the Act is being developed by the Labour front bench, working with Baroness Lawrence, policy and legal experts and community groups and this work is ongoing.”
Labour first announced plans to introduce a race relations act in 2020, but as Keir Starmer moved to distance himself from his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, there were some fears that the party would drop promises on anti-racism made in the 2019 race and faith mini manifesto co-authored by Corbyn and Dawn Butler.
The task force is keen to implement the Lammy review recommendations to reduce disproportionate sentencing outcomes for black communities. Mckenzie told The Voice an assessment on criminal justice reforms will take place in March, with plans to discuss racial bias within the Crown Prosecution Service.
Labour’s offer to black communities follows analysis by The Voice which shows one in every four black voters living in the top 100 constituencies with the highest black populations has a Tory MP who will be defending a small majority at the next election.
Analysis of the latest census data shows the African and Caribbean population in the UK has risen to four million, boosting the potential impact of the black vote relative to MPs winning marginals in the 2019 election.
American civil rights activist the Rev Al Sharpton will visit the UK next week to kickstart the biggest voter registration drive alongside Lord Simon Woolley, who was director of Operation Black Vote for almost three decades.
Lord Woolley told The Voice: “As always, elections are won and lost by small margins. Those small margins can easily be decided by the black vote. That’s why I’m urging black voters to register to vote, for a greater voice, for greater equality. It takes three minutes. We can decide who has the keys to Downing Street.”
