Crime warning for ‘alienated’ British Muslims

Those of Pakistani and Bangladeshi background have around three times the risk of being in poverty as white British people

People of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin earn 68% of the average salary of white people (Rex)

A generation of British Muslims are being cut adrift from mainstream society, seeing a gulf in prospects which is alienating some and turning them to crime, experts warn.

New research from the Centre for Social Investigation (CSI), at Nuffield College, Oxford University, reveals “large differences between ethnic minorities in their risks of poverty”.

Those of Pakistani and Bangladeshi background have around three times the risk of being in poverty as white British people. And they have “earnings consistently lower than those of other groups, fluctuating from year to year but averaging around 68 per cent of white earnings”, says a briefing by the centre – one of a series looking at social progress in Britain in recent years. Low earnings play a part in the fact that “a very high proportion of the Pakistani/Bangladeshi group are to be found in relative poverty”, the research said.

The briefing “highlights a terrible social indictment” according to Iqbal Wahhab OBE, chair of the CSI’s advisory board. “The core of both communities are British born and bred,” he said.