How do we know if the Budget will promote race equality?
As we await the Budget statement tomorrow, it’s clear that the government needs to continue to do much more to help households still struggling to cope with the soaring cost of living and high energy prices.
There are many things that the chancellor could do to help Black, Asian and minority ethnic people, and reduce racial inequality.
If there was one thing our current leadership could target that would really make a difference to racial equality, it would be to comprehensively expand social housing.
The government needs to build more genuinely affordable social homes. The lack of decent housing has pushed millions of people into insecure, expensive and often overcrowded accommodation. These experiences embed racial inequality.
Building more affordable homes is an effective way to address chronic poverty. Housing is at the heart of poverty for many in the Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities – they spend more on housing than other people in society, they are more likely to experience overcrowding, they are concentrated in busy polluted metropolitan areas, and disproportionate numbers of Black, Asian and minority ethnic people are facing eviction since the pandemic.
The government’s latest Budget needs to invest and develop the economy for everyone. That means having an acute focus on those communities whose life chances deteriorated further during the pandemic.
If we really want to start addressing the structural factors that cause race inequality, making sure everyone has a secure home is a good start. Will the Chancellor promote race equality? Look out for what he does to expand affordable social housing.