Jewish Community: Contribution to the UK

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Thursday 13th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)]

As always, Sir David, it is a privilege and a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) for securing this important debate and granting us the opportunity to reflect on the significant social, political, cultural and economic contributions that the Jewish community makes to our great United Kingdom. We must also pay thanks to the Jewish Leadership Council and Lord Levy for planting the seed of this debate.

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his first-rate opening speech. In a reasonably short time, he gave us an excellent overview of the full breadth and history of the Jewish community’s contribution to our country, and he should be commended for doing so with an incredibly positive and warm tone. I thank all other hon. Members who have participated in the debate; I will address the specific remarks made by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) later in my speech.

I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) for sharing her family story. I am glad that she did not take her grandmother’s advice, but has brought her ideas to this place. No one who has heard the hon. Lady speak on these issues, in this House or elsewhere, could fail to be struck by her force and passion. Our public discourse and debate in this place is the richer for her participation—and I am not sure that I will be able to look at tomatoes in the same way when I am at the supermarket this weekend.

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) for his intelligent, thoughtful and powerful speech. He spoke not only with incredible bravery but with clarity and force—and without any notes, as far as I could tell. I look forward to re-reading his excellent speech.

Late in his life, the great writer and polemicist Christopher Hitchens discovered that his mother was Jewish and that, by extension, so was he. When he told his oldest friend, Martin Amis, Amis replied, “You know, I find I’m jealous.” How else could he feel, when the Jewish people have the one of the most enviable records of achievement of any demographic group in the United Kingdom’s history? Despite only ever forming a small percentage of the population, British Jews have shone in almost every field. They have inspired and entertained, created and innovated. They have become our doctors, our philosophers, our inventors, our musicians, our writers, our leaders, our role models, our parliamentarians and, indeed, one of our Prime Ministers.

It is only right that we celebrate the great achievements of the Jewish community, whose contributions have truly shaped our nation’s journey and identity. Before we do so, however, I must take note of the fact that a couple of hon. Members, including the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East, referred to ongoing incidents of prejudice, abuse and discrimination. It is deeply disappointing that that issue still arises in our society; it should be tackled unflinchingly where it occurs. Those who face such displays of bigotry should know that the British Government and everybody in this Chamber stand with them and support them.

I am always struck by the phenomenally strong community spirit that is shown by the Jewish community here in Britain. He will not thank me for saying it, and he did not insert it into my speech, but my private secretary, who is sitting a couple of rows behind me, is a shining example of that, as I discover whenever I glean what he has been up to in his weekend activity.

The community has social action at its heart. The very word for charity in Hebrew is derived from the word for justice. The biggest Jewish charity, Jewish Care, is one of the 100 largest charities in the UK. It provides care to more than 10,000 people a week and has 15 care homes, 13 community centres and four independent living communities. It is an inspiration to the rest of us, showing how much can be done within a community to support those in need.

Similarly, Norwood, which began in the 1700s as a hospital in the east end of London, has flourished and grown over the centuries to support people of all ages. It highlights just how generous the community is with its time and resources, with 500 volunteers and £12 million raised every year to maintain its amazing and precious programmes.

The community strives to look after the vulnerable—not only within it but in the wider world. The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) gave the example of Mitzvah Day, when Jewish community groups and individuals up and down the country join forces with those of all faiths and none, volunteering their time to support those in need in their local community. That positive, collaborative social action is underpinned and inspired by the Jewish values of kindness, justice and shared responsibility. Last year, Mitzvah Day joined with Muslim Aid to launch a huge event to feed London’s homeless and vulnerable with that most famous of Jewish dishes—chicken soup.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston spoke about the amazing work of World Jewish Relief, a charity founded by a small Jewish group in London in the 1930s. It now co-ordinates important relief efforts all over the world and helps people of all denominations; it has recently helped refugees in the Rohingya humanitarian crisis in Myanmar and cyclone victims in Mozambique. Of course, it would be remiss of me not to join other hon. Members in mentioning the invaluable role of the Community Security Trust, which seeks to ensure the safety and security of Jewish communities and other communities across the United Kingdom.

Finally, no summary of the Jewish contribution to British public life would be complete without mention of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the national representative body of the UK’s Jewish community. As the longest-established religious minority in the UK, the Jewish people have led the way in demonstrating how to integrate fully and participate in our national life while retaining a distinct and proud identity, and that process has been led by the Board of Deputies. It has shown the way since 1760 in how to interact with the Government and fight for the rights of a group, while fostering good relations with those of other faiths and remaining perfectly integrated in wider society.

I will turn briefly from the community at large to the role of some individuals. It is no exaggeration at all to say that if I were merely to list every Jewish person who has achieved a record of note in UK society, we would be here for some weeks. However, I will give only a small sample, just a handful of those who have helped to shape our United Kingdom and what it is today. In the arts, I could mention Mike Leigh and Nicholas Hytner, Amy Winehouse and Yehudi Menuhin, Maureen Lipman and Sacha Baron Cohen; in academia, Simon Schama and Robert Winston; in the media, John Diamond and Jonathan Freedland; in art and design, Lucian Freud and Malcolm McLaren; Lord Neuberger, a President of the Supreme Court; Peter George Davis, the founder of the Special Boat Service; Jack Cohen, the founder of Tesco; and Ludwig Guttmann, the founder of the Paralympics.

I could mention many thousands of others who have founded the British businesses that we use every day and that provide employment for many, who have designed the technology that we use at work and at home, who have shaped the ideas that we follow, and who provide the entertainment we enjoy to rest and relax. I could speak for many hours, but in the interests of time we should press on.

I will end, therefore, by again thanking the hon. Member for City of Chester. He has done all of us a very valuable service. He has brought us together here today, to recognise, to celebrate and to be grateful for the invaluable contribution made by the Jewish community to the United Kingdom.

I stand here as someone who is the son of immigrants, and as someone who is proudly British, proudly Asian and proudly Hindu. I passionately believe that our society is richer for its diversity, and the Jewish community is a proud and shining testament to that.