Speaking at an event hosted by Macmillan Cancer Support for World Cancer Day, Wes Streeting said there was a need for DEI policies, after they were criticised by public figures such as the US president, Donald Trump.
Streeting, in conversation with the journalist Nick Robinson, said: “We’ve got to deal with these challenges against the backdrop at the moment, let’s be honest, where equality, diversity and inclusion is under a lot of spotlight and discussion.
“Now, I could get quite a lot of plaudits from quite a lot of people across the country … [If I said:] ‘You know what? NHS, tough times, I’m going to scrap all of those equality, diversity and inclusion people. We’ll save loads of money doing that, and we’ll divert the money into actual patient care’.”
He added: “Except, ask black nurses about their experiences of being bullied in the workplace in an organisation that has had black people in it since it was founded pretty much … Empire Windrush, NHS foundation, same year – that generation built the NHS.
“You look at outcomes: prostate cancer, black men twice as likely to die of prostate cancer than white men, black women three times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. We’ve got some real racial inequalities here.”
Streeting went on to say he believed addressing those challenges was a political fight he was willing to take on, but added that he would “also need the profession to help”.
But he added: “Sometimes there are some really daft things being done in the name of equality, diversity and inclusion, which [have] undermined the cause. For example, there was one member of NHS staff who was merrily tweeting a job ad online and saying part of her practice was anti-whiteness.”
Streeting added: “I just thought: what the hell does that say to the bloke up in Wigan who’s more likely to die earlier than his more affluent white counterparts down in London? We’ve got real issues of inequality that affect white working-class people.”
His comments come after it was announced that NHS England had scrapped a number of pledges, including plans to expand maternal mental health support to at least 66,000 women.
But he added: “Sometimes there are some really daft things being done in the name of equality, diversity and inclusion, which [have] undermined the cause. For example, there was one member of NHS staff who was merrily tweeting a job ad online and saying part of her practice was anti-whiteness.”
There is something to be said about avoiding terms like ‘anti-whiteness’ because of the disconnect between the academic meaning and the colloquial meaning of the term, but there’s no way Streeting doesn’t know the academic meaning and that it’s the one being used here. It’s hard not to see this as a wink to culture war-obsessed Tory/Reform voters, something he’s made quite the habit of between his actions on trans kids and comments on ‘grooming gangs’.
People call Starmer a Red Tory. Streeting actually is one.
