Islamophobia

Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, it is quite correct to say “nearly half”—around 45% of religiously motivated hate crime was against Muslims. As I mentioned in my Answer, we provided Tell MAMA £4 million over the last five years to monitor anti-Muslim hate crimes and support victims. We have also awarded £1.8 million through the faith, race and hate crime grant scheme to support established community groups and civil society organisations to boost shared values and tackle religiously and racially motivated hate crime.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has acknowledged that the Home Office’s own figures show that 45% of all recent recorded religious hate crimes in England and Wales targeted British Muslims, but he has not yet said why the Government are so reluctant and are dragging their feet over coming up with a clear definition of Islamophobia. Why have they refused to do this? Is he aware that it is mainly Muslim women who are being targeted, because of the way they dress? Young people are being targeted and bullied in schools and on the streets. Given the scale of this problem, and given the rise in far-right extremism, can the Minister tell me what actual action, besides funding an organisation to monitor it, the Government will take to reassure the 3 million British Muslims of their commitment to tackling hatred, and the violent crimes and discrimination they are experiencing?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we recognise the seriousness of this, but we also recognise the point made by Khalid Mahmood MP in the other place that there are issues with the term “Islamophobia”. It has been weaponised by particular groups to tackle free speech. We recognise that it is important to establish a definition, but as he himself says, this is a difficult thing to solve and the first principle is to do no harm. We will proceed slowly and carefully in order to get this right.

Islamophobia

Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The right reverend Prelate is right. I had brief sight of the abhorrent hate crime addressed to Qari Asim and I condemn it utterly. He is also right that we need to work harder on the schools and education policy to be sure that young people are not ingrained in any of this despicable stuff.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, at a time when anti-Muslim and Islamophobic hate crime has spiked by over 500%, and given that the APPG definition was arrived at after widespread consultation with hundreds of academic organisations and now has the support of most mainstream political parties, chief police officers, councils, trade unions and the Scottish Conservatives, why have the Government decided to appoint two advisers to come up with a different definition? Can the Minister not see that doing that, and delaying coming to a non-binding position on this, leads to the community losing confidence in the Government even further because they appear to be kicking something as important as this into the long grass and not taking it seriously?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

Not at all—we take it very seriously. The question asked by the noble Baroness is very similar to that from the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. I say again that the definition goes against not only the Equality Act 2010 but international human rights law, which treats race and religion separately. Criticising somebody because of their race is regarded in international law as unacceptable, but criticising religions or beliefs is permitted. This remains a challenging issue, and we want to move quickly to resolve it.

Homelessness

Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My noble friend is right that the Act is antiquated—perhaps a bit of an understatement. I understand that it was originally brought in to make it easier to clear the streets of destitute soldiers after the Napoleonic wars. On the point that he raises, however, the Government believe that a review of the Act rather than immediate wholesale repeal is the right course of action, to ensure that the consequences of a repeal are fully understood.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, a number of homeless people are very young, under the age of 21. I could find no figures that exist for their exact numbers, but what is being done to monitor this, because local authorities have powers to help young people who sleep rough on the street? I have seen significant evidence of this, but who is monitoring it and ensuring that local authorities take their responsibilities to help these young people off the streets seriously?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The noble Baroness makes a good point because one of our initiatives is to have so-called rough sleeping navigators. They are on the street and get to know who is there—including their age, as some of them can be very young—to do something about it. As I said earlier, often the link needs to be made to other departments such as the Department for Education or, particularly, the Department of Health and Social Care.