The following speech was delivered in central London on 12th May 2009

I would like to thank The Monitoring Group-Min Quan project for giving me this opportunity to say a few words to launch this timely report which focuses on racism against the UK's Chinese community.

'Hidden from Public View' - was funded by my department through our Connecting Communities Plus grant programme and offers a rare insight into the plight of Chinese victims of racism in three different towns and areas of the United Kingdom: London, Manchester and Southampton. Some of the stories and experiences cited in the report are not only harrowing but unique. The report highlights the plight of men and women working in the take-away industry as well as the experiences of Chinese students and other members of the Chinese community.

A key concern, when reading the report was that many of the perpetrators were school children as young as 10. Perhaps more disconcerting was the finding that their behaviour was often dismissed as 'a bit of fun'.

Yet it is this behaviour, this 'bit of fun' which if left unchallenged leads to more serious consequences.

The report highlights a number of incidents where young children's behaviour have forced thriving businesses to close, where there actions have led to abuse and physical injury.

The report gives numerous examples of owners and workers in the Chinese catering industry being forced to put up with verbal abuse and non-payment for goods on a daily basis. In some cases even physical assault and murder.

Clearly this is unacceptable. Government is committed to confronting racism wherever it occurs. We share The Monitoring Group's concerns about that racism against the Chinese community, however it is important for us to stress that we treat all hate crime with equal veracity and that there is no place for treating victims differently regardless of their race, gender, ethnic origin, faith, sexual orientation, age or disability.

Hidden from Public View? Makes a number of recommendations, to central and local government, and the criminal justice agencies which I obviously can't respond to in any detail now. However, I would like to give a personal undertaking that we will study all 24 recommendations and give a detailed response by the beginning of August. That said, I would like to make some initial comments on some of the key recommendations.

Recommendation 1 suggests that 'efforts should be made to improve the reporting of race hate incidents against UK Chinese people.'

I can happily report that this is underway. We agree that there is a need to increase understanding amongst the UK Chinese of how to report hate incidents and believe that True Vision is the best route for this.

We are currently looking into the possibility of reviewing third party reporting but are mindful that we should not ignore reports from centres who may not be officially recognised third party reporting sites.

Recommendation 1 also calls for 're-establishing' trust of the black, and ethnic minority communities in the police and  criminal justice system,  however we are of the firm belief and all our evidence shows that there is a steady increase in the levels of confidence. The Citizenship Survey (2008) has shown a marked increase in the confidence levels for example there was an 11 per cent decrease in the number of people from BAME communities that believe that they would not receive equitable treatment from criminal justice agencies.

Recommendation 2 calls for 'Local Criminal Justice Boards to carry out targeted work with the Chinese Community as part of their statutory requirement to engage with local communities…' I'm pleased to report that this is already underway. The Public Service Agreement (PSA) 24 - 4 requires local agencies through the machinery of Local Criminal Justice Boards to better able to explain race disproportionality at key points within the CJS. This will include a specific diagnostic tool looking at the handling of hate crimes.

We agree with recommendation 14 which calls on the good work undertaken by some forces and criminal justice agencies to be encouraged and shared more widely.

More broadly, I would like to point to Government strengthening both the legal framework against race discrimination and the criminal penalties for offences such as incitement to racial hatred and for racially or religiously aggravated assault and criminal damage.

I can assure you we have robust police and CPS policies. Police forces continue to be alert to crimes being committed against members of all communities including the Chinese community and take appropriate steps to safeguard people and property.

I believe that this report will at the very least start a national debate on the nature of racism suffered by the Chinese community and ensure that the issue is acknowledged and that appropriate steps are taken to ensure that the UK's Chinese Community like all communities must be able to live their lives free from fear of verbal or physical attack.  The Government will continue to offer whatever support we can.  We stand ready to offer our advice to all those committed to tackling the scourge of racism and hate crime in all its forms.