Community Cohesion

Helen Maguire Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Westminster Hall

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

It is a pleasure as always, Dr Murrison.

As well as congratulating the hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger), I would like to say in opening how much value I place on the contributions from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and his colleague from Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell). In that part of the United Kingdom, we have had the opportunity over many years to learn a great deal about how cohesion can be done right and what happens when it goes wrong. It is particularly important to hear their voices in a debate on this subject. It is also important to hear from a range of Members, including the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan), who set out some quite particular insights on how the city of Birmingham has had to deal with many challenges.

It is my privilege to represent an extremely diverse but thankfully very cohesive constituency. It is served by two local authorities, both of which are extremely proactive; they have interfaith networks and hold a huge variety of community events. In response to the situation when flags were being raised across high streets, which was clearly intended by many as an act of intimidation, they used those lamp posts and other public street furniture to display flags that celebrated the borough’s heritage and the heritage of the local community, in order to crowd out that space from those who sought to use it to divide the community. That shows a degree of local leadership that we all appreciate.

The fact that we are having this debate in the context of housing, communities and local government demonstrates the breadth of council services. I reflect on my own time as a councillor, when the 9/11 incidents happened. Suddenly, the airspace of the United States was closed. Hillingdon council worked to provide accommodation for thousands of stranded travellers from across the world and to enable them to communicate with their family members to tell them that they were okay and that they had somewhere to stay for the night when all the hotels were full. It also worked very closely with the military, for example, to ensure that the logistics were laid on so that people were supported.

As a number of Members have referred to, that kind of leadership came to the fore again during the covid era, when organisations such as H4All in Hillingdon and Harrow came out and ensured that people had food and medication delivered. We saw the work that was done by synagogues, mosques, churches and non-faith organisations to support each other not just in my community, but across the whole country.

We know that cohesion is something that we can do well, and we know that its leadership often sits with local government. Indeed, when the last Labour Government promoted the roll-out of food banks, it was a recognition—as was the case in my community—that there was a level of need that statutory services were not always able to meet, which that particular community initiative was able to serve. That is why we saw the spread of those across the country to meet that specific need.

We are having this debate at a time when there is a growing level of interest in issues around cohesion. Many will have heard the news coverage of the speech given by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, if not the speech itself, in which she set out a number of workstreams seeking to address many of the concerns that Members have described today. It seems to me that this is an area where there is a high degree of cross-party consensus; we know that we need to address these issues in order to strengthen our society.

Let me briefly set out some of the Opposition’s principles around cohesion, some of which are quite focused on local government and some of which are much broader. It is striking that all Members who have contributed to this debate have spoken of the importance of our society and values and the principles of freedom and the rule of law. I was particularly struck by the comments of the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr; this must not become a debate about attacking Islam. We are a country that is a plural and liberal democracy. In a community like mine, that means that women and girls have the freedom to wear a headscarf if they choose to, and the protection of the law from those who would seek to force that on them if they choose not to. Both those things are equally important.

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

On Sunday, I celebrated iftar at the local Epsom Islamic Centre. We enjoyed lots of wonderful food and a real community spirit. Unfortunately, last October the centre was the target of vandalism and abuse, which included words and devils spray-painted on the building. That hatred does not represent the majority of people in Epsom and Ewell, but we cannot ignore the fact that there are those in our country who seek to divide us. Does the hon. Member agree that we must support our communities in standing firm against hatred and violence in all its forms?

[David Simmonds]

I do not think there is any argument against the points that the hon. Member raises, and they reflect things that I am sure we have all heard as constituency MPs. When I visited one of my local synagogues on Friday, the people there talked about the difficulties that some of the children in that community had faced at school with the rising tide of antisemitism that they had experienced. That is part of the bigger picture.

We need to ensure that, as far as we can, we build a level of common understanding. When we talk about shared values, sometimes people are prone to say, “We have sharia law in some parts of the country,” or, “We have the Beth Din, which sits outside of the law.” Indeed, the canon law of the Catholic Church, which has been part of our Christian community for centuries, permitted marriage at the age of 14 up until that law was changed in 2019. Sometimes these misunderstandings are not simply about a view of Islam; they are about different communities and cultures. We need to ensure that everybody recognises that the rule of law and the freedoms that it brings apply to everybody in our country.

All of our citizens are free to decide that in the event of a dispute about a business, they would like a sharia court to be involved in settling it. If two Jewish business people wish to use the Beth Din to settle the matter, they can do that as well. That does not remove, under any circumstances, the freedoms and the protections that the law of the land gives to everybody in our country. That must always be there as a clear recourse.

I will touch on an issue that we covered a little yesterday in the debate about the Representation of the People Act 1983. The issue of electoral interference is one that sits with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, but is of concern to Members across the House. I reflect on a session of the Home Affairs Committee that was chaired by the now Foreign Secretary, who asked our intelligence services what evidence there was of Russian interference in the Brexit debate, which was the issue at the time. The response was illuminating. The point our security services made was not that Russia, China or Iran is seeking a particular outcome in a political debate happening in the United Kingdom. What those sponsors of terror are seeking to achieve is division in the United Kingdom and a lack of coherence in our society. We must make sure that we are always vigilant and that our laws are updated regularly to take account of how we can resist that.

Moving to more local matters, a lot of the debate has revolved around what makes a community. I know you represent a constituency with a diverse range of local settlements that are different to those in London, Dr Murrison. When we think of community, we think of thriving high streets and places that people can feel proud of. We think of a strong economy and of places where people can get and keep a job that supports their standard of living and their opportunity. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s reflections, because those things have been hotly debated in Parliament. We see the impact of rising taxes in the hollowing-out of our high streets. We know that 89,000 jobs have been lost in hospitality and 74,000 in retail since October 2024. The relentless rise in unemployment under this Government is putting enormous strain on the cohesion of our communities.