Balfour Declaration

Lord Bishop of Worcester Excerpts

Monday 3rd April 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Worcester]

My Lords, will the Minister accept that there is grave concern about facts on the ground tending to suggest the impossibility of a two-state solution?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate raises a vital issue. Announcements such as the one made last Friday by the Israeli Government about building a new settlement in the West Bank—the first such government decision there for over 25 years—make one worried that it is becoming more difficult for negotiations that could lead to a two-state solution, and it is necessary to ensure that they do not proceed with such settlements.

Iraq: Isis

Lord Bishop of Worcester Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, it is a fact that Daesh uses these most appalling treatments and murders in order to subjugate people. It is therefore important that when we consider them, we look very carefully at how we communicate what has been happening and that we also look carefully at the evidence of what has been happening. Taking a political action is a matter of a moment; it does not deliver justice. The commitment of this Government to delivering that justice is absolute. It consumes the work that I do and the work of those in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and in other departments who are helping me and who have great expertise, because we know that it is only by delivering justice in that area that we can not only help people there but ensure that there is more security elsewhere.

[The Lord Bishop of Worcester]

My Lords, at the wonderful parliamentary prayer breakfast in Westminster Hall that I attended this morning along with 750 others, including 150 parliamentarians, many of them from this House, we were addressed by Bishop Angaelos of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the UK. He spoke movingly of the plight of Christians in the Middle East. While I acknowledge that the vast majority of those killed by ISIS are Muslims, will the Minister assure the House that the Government will work ever more closely with the leaders of the appallingly persecuted Christian community in the Middle East, such as Bishop Angaelos, and other religious leaders there in order to learn their perspective on what is happening?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

The right reverend Prelate makes a vital point, and indeed I do give that undertaking. I was very fortunate that a couple of weeks ago Bishop Angaelos invited me to the headquarters of the Coptic Church in Stevenage to discuss matters with him there, and he subsequently kindly ensured that here in the Palace I was able to meet senior representatives of Christian faiths from Syria, who very bravely travelled to this country to give me information. We will continue to do that.

Middle East

Lord Bishop of Worcester Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Worcester]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Empey, drew attention to our consistent lack of understanding of the Middle East. In the brief time available to me, I should like to highlight one area of that lack of understanding—the religious dimension. What concerns me is the lack of religious literacy in our society even among opinion formers and decision-makers. By religious literacy I mean, as his grace the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury put it recently, not just propositional knowledge but emotional intelligence that enables us to understand the place of faith in other people’s lives. Only with that sort of knowledge will we understand the ideological drivers to discord and violence that poison life in the Middle East, and not just between Israelis and Palestinians. How many understand the disenfranchisement and disenchantment felt in Sunni heartlands, for example?

As religion becomes more and more central to questions of peace in our world, religious literacy in this country is decreasing and religious education is in a pretty poor state. I commend initiatives like that of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has engaged consistently with the Al-Azhar University in Cairo to promote understanding between people of faith. What plans do the Government have to promote religious literacy so that it reaches all parts of our society, not least all parts of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office?

We have the expertise necessary; witness the long-standing and excellent interfaith programme of the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University or the impressive work of the Woolf Institute in the same university. I suggest that deep religious literacy is a fundamental precursor to understanding the Middle East and more crucial still to winning over the hearts and minds of those committed to violence.