From Mayor's Question Time on 18th June 2020.
Speaking in support of a motion proposed by Dr Onkar Sahota AM.
"Chair, it is an honour to speak to this motion, because I have spent my life working to end racial inequality.
But I must say I have lost count of how many such speeches I have given.
Racial inequality still blights our society. Twice as many Londoners of colour live in poverty. One in eight live in overcrowded homes. Black women are five times more likely to die in childbirth. As a former nurse I find that particularly disgraceful.
Each time public attention turns to one of the many injustices people of colour live with every day, we are told change is coming.
When London elected the first three Black MPs thirty three years ago – they said change was coming.
But Diane Abbott waited another ten years for the second black woman and eight years after that for the third. We would need another thirty non-white MPs to represent the country.
When the Macpherson inquiry was published 21 years ago after the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence – they said change was coming
But black people are eight times more likely to be tasered by the police. Through this awful pandemic, the Met fined black Londoners twice as often as they did their white neighbours.
When the Labour government passed the Equality Act in 2010 – they said change was coming
But despite being more likely to have a degree, BAME people are twice as likely to be unemployed. When nine in ten of the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire were non-white or non-UK nationals – they said change was coming
But it took until this year for the last family left homeless by the fire to be moved out of a hotel.
When the Windrush Scandal shamed a Tory government into admitting it had deported innocent people – they said change was coming.
But there are 30 recommendations for the Home Office to implement before we can claim to have learned from what was done to those people.
When Public Health England published its report into racial inequalities in coronavirus – they said change was coming
But that report told us nothing new, and even then, Ministers tried to take away its teeth by hiding the recommendations. Now, all the Government can promise is an inquiry led by a minister who’d never even heard of the Marmot Report into Health Inequalities.
Chair, I am sick and tired of being told change is coming.
As David Lammy said so passionately the other day – you’re in Government – do something!
I want to celebrate the progress that has been made. Hope is vital. Looking at what we have achieved shows us that things can be different. They must be different.
Let this latest round of agitation for justice, led by so many of our young people, be the moment that means change really is coming, for so many of us who have been waiting and working for so long."