Member

The fear of being accused of being racist is very real. The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, herself was nominated “Islamophobe of the Year” for her incredible public service in doing this work. We have to remove that terror for officials involved in this area of work, whether they are social workers, police or those managing care homes. We have to take the heat out of this. We have to be able to have a conversation about who the perpetrators are and who the victims are. We need detailed analysis, not just generalised “Asian” or generalised “Pakistani”. We need to know exactly what we are looking at so that we do not cause offence to our colleagues—and some colleagues in this House themselves feel sensitive about the labelling of whole communities in this conversation.