Immigration

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

What I would say is that the “Bake Off” result recognises the immense contribution which minorities and immigrants in this country—including second generation and third generation immigrants—continue to make. That is what the Home Secretary said, as I read out at the beginning. She said:

“The people who have moved here down the generations, who have played a massive part in making this country what it is”.

I think that is absolutely right. I think they are both right.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

Does my noble friend not agree that the problem is not one of ethnicity? The problems we face are those that spring from divergent cultures. Would he agree that a society can have only one dominant culture? If there are two cultures striving to be dominant, it will cause social strife.

[Lord Bates]

Where my noble friend is right is that perhaps in the past—the Prime Minister has spoken frequently about this—we have been too silent on what British values actually are. That is one of the things that we need to be more to the forefront about. We have introduced legislation on that and we are going to bring forward more legislation in the counterextremism Bill to talk up the positives of British values rather than those voices that would seek to introduce discord in our society.