The Chief Executive of Kingston's Race and Equalities Council (KREC) submitted evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) earlier this month following a call for submissions on the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry 20 years after its publication.

John Azah is the chief executive of KREC and submitted evidence to the HASC in January, before being recalled by the HASC to present oral evidence earlier this month, on March 12.

Stephen Lawrence was a black teenager from Plumstead who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus in Eltham in 1993.

The inquiry into his death, also known as the MacPhearson report, was published in 1999.

It accused the Metropolitan Police of institutional racism and made 70 recommendations, many aimed at improving police attitudes to racism.

Submitting his evidence to the HASC, Mr Azah praised the "tremendous contributions" of Dr Neville Lawrence and Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Stephen's parents, with regards to the impact their campaigning had had on improving race relations in the UK.

The KREC head then said that the impact of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry could be divided into two sections—the first 10 years after the report was published on the one hand, and the subsequent 10-year period, 2009-present.

A statement published by KREC in line with Mr Azah's evidence said that the initial period following Inquiry between 1999-2009 had witnessed marked improvements in race relations in the UK, and listed some of those improvements.

KREC said: "The first ten years saw the setting up of Independent Advisory Groups (IAG), the development of the Family Liaison Officer service (FLO) recording of racist incidents, the setting up of Community Safety Units (CSU) which recorded and referred victims to Race and Equalities Councils (REC)..."

"Transparency and Information sharing agreements with community advisers and organisations, change of legislation such as the Race Relations Act amendment and the Equality Act 2010 and Critical Incident Training for Officers which included Independent Advisers."

It added that, since 2009, the UK had been backsliding on matters of racial equality.

KREC said: "The second ten years saw a slowdown and a gradual erosion of the impact of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry.

"There was less use of IAGs, Race Equality was dropped as a priority issue and very little or nothing was done about Race Equality, funding for Race Equality Councils was abolished by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)..."

The statement also referenced the reported slowdown in police referring hate crimes to local Race Equality Councils and the funding cuts to Central Support Units.

Speaking after he submitted evidence to the HASC, Mr Azah said: "The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry was a watershed moment in the history of race relations in the country. The brutal stabbing with a knife to murder Stephen Lawrence by racist thugs and the subsequent Inquiry was supposed to help raise awareness, encourage the Police Service to work positively with communities and address knife crime killings and Institutional Racism."

"Today there are more knife crime killings than ever before, Hate crime continues to be on the increase, Race Hate Crime victims are not referred to KREC for a service and there is no monitoring of the progress made by statutory organisations on the Recommendations of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry and Institutional Racism."

Mr Azah urged people concerned by knife crime or eager to help challenge its rise to attend the conference on hate crime scheduled for June this year and organized by KREC.

The conference will examine the challenges with knife crime still facing society, hate crime itself and community engagement.

For more information, contact KREC at: info@kingstonrec.or, call 020 8547 2332. the KREC website is at: website: www.kingstonrec.org