A year after the Sewell report was launched to such controversy, the government has responded with Inclusive Britain, a report that includes recommendations that government ministers drop the term BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic), renew efforts to scrutinise police stop and search at the local level, and redraw the history curriculum to teach Britain’s “complex” past.

Boris Johnson’s equalities minister Kemi Badenoch said “I strongly believe that Britain is the fairest and most open-minded country in the world, but there is more we can do to foster inclusion and enable everyone to reach their full potential.”

Inclusive Britain also includes details of how employers can introduce positive action policies within their organisation, as well as the establishment of a new Inclusion at Work Panel, which will examine equality training within the workplace.

Sewell’s original report included recommendations that Britain recognise the benefits that slavery was not just about “profit and suffering”, as well as denials that structural racism existed in the UK. The backlash led to parts of the report being amended, with one footnote clarifying that “this is to say that in the face of the inhumanity of slavery, African people preserved their humanity and culture. This includes the history of slave resistance.”

Voscur released an opinion piece at the time, as did many organisations that have a focus on inequalities. The Sewell report’s release coincided with challenges several VCSE organisations were experiencing in terms of their own equalities’ work.