Jack Straw has said 'a lot of white politicians' prefer to keep silent about the segregation of our communities for fear of being dubbed racist.

The former Labour home secretary said it was the responsibility of politicians to get such issues out in the open, but said there was a 'polite society' which meant that such issues are not talked about.

And Ann Cryer, the former Labour MP for Keighley, said it had been difficult for her to raise the issue of grooming by Asian men in her West Yorkshire constituency 'without being called a racist'.

Jack Straw, Labour MP for Blackburn has said 'a lot of white politicians' prefer to keep silent about the segregation of our communities for fear of being dubbed racist

She said friends of hers in the Labour Party had known about the abuse for years, but said nothing about it.

The two politicians made their comments on a documentary to be screened on Thursday and presented by Trevor Phillips, the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

It comes days after Mr Philllips said in an article that Britain is silencing debate on race issues by 'intimidating' those who dare to ask questions.

He said far too many people felt unable to speak their minds out of a fear they would be branded racist, and that people would have to become 'more ready to offend each other' as the price of free speech.

The comments come 10 years after he warned that Britain was 'sleepwalking to segregation' – comments which attracted a welter of criticism.

But one politician who did not condemn the comments at the time was Mr Straw, home secretary from 1997 and 2001 and foreign secretary until 2006.

The MP for Blackburn, one of Britain's most segregated constituencies, said: 'It is a fact of life that people tend to want to live where people like them live.

'If you got a map I could say the people in that area some from this part of India, the people in that area come from another Indian area but not very far away by the way, and this is a Pakistani area and these people come from here and these people come from there,' he said.

Asked Mr Phillips why it is that the UK is not comfortable talking about segregation, Mr Straw said: 'There is a sort of polite society in which people aren't comfortable about talking about this.

'But I think that in politics you have a responsibility to get things out in the open. I am concerned about the effects of people living wholly separate lives of course, but you can't direct where people live.'

Ann Cryer, the former Labour MP for Keighley, said it had been difficult for her to raise the issue of grooming by Asian men in her West Yorkshire constituency 'without being called a racist'

Mr Phillips then asked him why he thinks there is 'essentially such a silence on these questions'.

Mr Straw said: 'I think that a lot of white politicians are nervous about this. They lack confidence about what their views are – and think that somebody will criticise them if they come out with them.'

When Mr Phillips suggested: 'Somebody will call them racist?', Mr Straw replied: 'Racist or some nonsense like that.'

Mrs Cryer also spoke to the programme about how she felt 'politically inhibited' when she tried to raise the subject of child grooming in her Keighley constituency in 2002.

'It was difficult for me to make these arguments without being called a racist,' she said.

'And I just couldn't interest either Bradford Social Services or West Yorkshire Police, and it was very distressing for me, so the last resort was to go public.'

She said the victims of abuse were aged 12 or 13, but neither the mothers or the girls themselves could get any interest from the local police.

'Their mothers knew what was going on, that there was sexual activity with girls who were underage,' she said. 'Not entirely – but nearly always – the gangs are from the Mirpuri Pakistani community.

'These seven women were saying: 'It's not fair, we've told West Yorkshire Police about it. We've told Social Services about it and no one will do anything.

'Totally absurd: I mean, friends of mine in the Labour Party, they'd known about it for years and they never mentioned it to me.'