Diane Abbott was elected to head up the All Party Parliamentary Group in the UK last month

Hat tip: Black European Women’s Council

Diane Abbott was elected chair of the newly re-established All Party Parliamentary Group on Race and Community – Westminster’s only dedicated cross-party group focused on issues of race equality. Deputy Lib Dem leader Simon Hughes and Conservative peer Lord Sheikh also attended the first meeting of the group today in the House of Commons, as well as former ministers David Lammy, Jim Fitzpatrick and Meg Hillier. Thirteen parliamentarians attended in total.

The group – which has until now been inactive since 2005 – expressed its commitment to drawing attention to race inequalities in the UK and highlighted right-wing extremism, islamophobia, education and implementation of the Equality Act as possible areas of focus over the coming year.

Runnymede – the UK’s leading race equality think tank – will act as the secretariat of the group and has been working to re-establish the group since the start of the year.

Commenting, the group’s chair Diane Abbott said:

“I’m delighted that the All Party Parliamentary Group on Race and Community has been successfully reestablished. Too often the topic of race falls to the bottom of the political agenda, so going forward as a group we will work together to draw attention to race equality issues in the UK”.

Members of the APPG on Race and Community are as follows:
Group Officers
· Chair: Diane Abbott MP (Labour)
· Vice Chair: Lord Lester (Liberal Democrat)
· Vice Chair: Lord Sheikh (Conservative)
· Vice Chair: David Lammy MP (Labour)
· Vice Chair: Lord Adebowale (Cross-bench)
Group Members
· Lord Avebury (Liberal Democrat)
· Gavin Barwell MP (Conservative)
· Luciana Berger MP(Labour)
· Peter Bottomley MP (Conservative)
· Baroness Coussins (Cross-bench)
· Lord Dholakia (Liberal Democrat)
· Lord Dubs (Labour)
· Jim Fitzpatrick MP (Labour)
· Richard Fuller MP (Conservative)
· Kate Green MP (Labour)
· Meg Hiller MP (Labour)
· Baroness Howells of St Davids (Labour)
· Simon Hughes MP (Liberal Democrat)
· Lord Hunt of Wirral (Conservative)
· Lord Ouseley (Cross-bench)
· Lord Parekh (Labour)
· Baroness Prashar (Cross-bench)
· Jonathan Reynolds MP (Labour)
· Gary Streeter MP (Conservative)
· Paul Uppal MP (Conservative)
· Keith Vaz MP (Labour)