This is a summary of the Government’s recently passed Illegal Migration Act 2023 and its impact on migrants arriving in the United Kingdom. This summary will cover the Act’s estimated costs to the United Kingdom’s economy, its impact on incoming migration and asylum seeking, possible human rights implications, and the potential strain it may put on local governments and legal aid providers.

It is clear how ethnic disparities within the labour market are linked to other disparities in policy such as housing, and influenced by national crises such as the cost of living crisis. Issues within the labour market leads to wage disparity between minoritised communities and their White counterparts.

The Renters Reform Bill is currently in its 2nd reading in the House of Commons and will legislate the reforms set out in the A Fairer Private Rental Sector White Paper published in June 2022. The White Paper aims to reform the Private Rented Sector (private rental sector).

This is a summary of the impact of the government’s autumn budget on Black and Minoritised people. It covers changes to taxes, public spending, health and social care, wages, pensions, and benefits. Throughout the fiscal year of 2021-22, indicators of economic growth have been moving towards constriction. With the announcement of Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Budget (2022), the UK has officially entered into a period of recession.

The Grenfell Tower tragedy of 2017 lifted the veil over the abundant problems in the Social Housing sector; where a resident warning about serious fire risk within the building was labelled a “troublemaker” by the housing management, and a year later, found himself having to escape with his life in a fire that caused 72 bereavements.

In mitigating the effects of the Cost-of-Living Crisis, it is first important to set it within the context of the pre-existing economic disparity that has always prevailed within the South West; that disproportionately disadvantages Minoritised communities.

Since the release of the autumn budget, the UK has seen a rapid increase in the cost of living with prices increasing by 6.2% in the 12 months prior to February 2022. This is expected to rise to 9% by the end of the calendar year.

Monday 22 June marked the 3rd year of Windrush Day, a day honouring the Caribbean community and the half a million people who travelled to the UK after the WW2 - a commemoration which Patrick Vernon had been campaigning for since 2013.

While the report acknowledges overt racism, it argues that institutional racism is not borne out of the evidence. This is despite the fact that racialised communities have disproportionately negative outcomes in every key social policy area.

BSWN with key partners VOSCUR and Locality launched the report of a 9-month city-wide research project exploring the response of Bristol’s VCSE Sector to the pandemic and the potential of the sector in the city moving forward.

The Bristol Living Rent Commission was created in 2022 to investigate how to make Bristol a “living rent city.” The report is an investigation into the private rental sector in Bristol and rent control measures, concluding with 29 recommendations including engaging the government on a national rent control system and devolving powers to the city-level to control rents. BSWN contributed written evidence on ethnic disparities within the private rental sector to the Commission.

Ethnic minorities account for around 14 percent of the UK population (ONS, 2011) and while all British ethnic minority groups have made progress in employment, occupational mix, labour force participation and education relative to the white majority, ethnic minorities still do less well than most white people in most socioeconomic areas.

The overall objectives of the proposal are at odds with the UK’s international legal obligations. The proposals fail to consider or discuss the incorporation of any other international human rights standards into UK law.

We, along with our colleagues at Campaigners Stroud Against Racism, believe that the statue is based on demeaning imagery of a time gone by when Gloucestershire profited from the Transatlantic Trafficking of Enslaved Africans.

The government has called for evidence on ethnic disparities and inequality in the UK, this is a joint submission between us and Bristol’s Commission on Race Equality (CoRE).

On the 18th of June, 2023, The Times reported on the Government’s purported plans to unveil more restrictive rules on social housing allocation. The article, entitled “Britons ‘to be priority (sic) on council house lists’” outlines ministerial concerns regarding the inordinate waiting times experienced by more than a million households patiently waiting for social housing (The Times 2023).

Following on from our Submission to Just Fair month we are one of 82 organisations calling on the UK Government to respect human rights in the UK after many UN member states highlighted failures across the board. On Thursday the 10th of November member states of the UN Human Rights Council called on the UK Government to take action to better realise rights in the UK.

The website in question was created as an integrated service from which the public can access government data on racial disparities in the UK.