Britain has failed white boys, Starmer to be told by Tory peer

The author of a landmark report into inequality in Britain is set to tell Keir Starmer that his government is failing to improve education for white working-class boys.

Lord Sewell was the chairman of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, a group set up by Boris Johnson to investigate whether Britain was a racist country following the Black Lives Matter protests in 2021.

The landmark review found children from many ethnic minorities do as well or better at school than white pupils, who often performed the lowest. 

At the time, the Tory peer warned ministers should consider the needs of the white working class, saying his report had uncovered how 'stuck' such groups were.

Little appears to have changed since then, with the latest figures from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) showing that only one third of White pupils on free school meals achieving the minimum grade to pass GCSE English and Maths.

Meanwhile, this was achieved by over 80 per cent of Chinese pupils, and almost 70 per cent of Indian and Bangladeshi pupils, who were all also on free school meals. 

The CSJ will host an event in Westminster later this week to mark the fifth anniversary of the report, where Lord Sewell is expected to reiterate his concerns. 

He will state: 'Five years ago, we were told by the woke Left and liberal Right that the evidence on class and family was uncomfortable. Since then, this evidence has only hardened.'

'White working-class boys from the poorest homes are still stuck at the bottom of the class. Our warnings were not listened to,' he will add.  

'If we are serious about opportunity, we have to stop arguing about language and start delivering change in the places that need it most.'

The CSJ's latest Lost Boys report from March last year found that only 35.9 per cent of white British pupils on free school meals achieved a grade 4 or above in GCSE Maths and English

This was 7 per cent lower than the overall average and the lowest of any group, with mixed white and black Caribbean pupils found to have pass rates of 36.9 per cent.

Meanwhile, 67.2 per cent of Bangladeshi pupils and 83.7 per cent of Chinese pupils on free school meals achieved the same grade. 

Official government data from May also shows that white working-class children are falling behind their peers in all but 21 schools across the country. 

It means only a tiny fraction of more than 3,400 secondary schools across England see such pupils doing as well as their peers. 

The data also showed that the proportion of white working-class pupils getting grades 5 or above in English and maths GCSE was 18.6 per cent, substantially below the 45.9 per cent national average. 

Mercy Muroki, a member of Lord Sewell's commission and CSJ development director, said: 'Family stability, class, and aspiration matter far more for children's life chances than many of the issues that dominated identity politics culture wars in 2020.

'Five years on from Sewell's report, the evidence is clear: family breakdown, deprivation and low expectations for young people, not ethnicity, are the main drivers of disadvantage in Britain.'

Lord Sewell's report sparked fury on the Left after it concluded Britain is a model to the world of a successful multi-ethnic society and found no evidence the UK is institutionally racist. 

The report concluded that the success of many of Britain's ethnic minorities in education and, to a lesser extent, the economy 'should be regarded as a model for other white-majority countries'. 

It said that the aspirations and hard work of many ethnic minority communities had transformed UK society over the last 50 years into one offering far greater opportunities for all.

'Education is the single most emphatic success story of the British ethnic minority experience,' it concluded.