Social Cohesion and Community during Periods of Change
(1 week ago)
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The Archbishop of York
That this House takes note of the importance of social cohesion and strong, supportive community life during periods of change and global uncertainty.
The Archbishop of York
My Lords, on Monday 29 July this year, just before 11.50 am, police officers were called to a property in Southport, where children attending a dance school had been appallingly and ferociously attacked by a man with a knife. Three of the children—Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice Dasilva Aguiar and Bebe King —died. Many others sustained terrible injuries, and a whole community and many families were devastated and traumatised.
Understandably, horror and anguish convulsed not just Southport but the whole country. Rumours quickly circulated on the internet that the man to blame for this attack was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK illegally and was on the MI6 watch-list. This was not true. As a reporter put it a few days later, once lit, the torch paper of disinformation burned quickly. Although this rumour was quickly debunked, in the days that followed, as we know, riots broke out all over our country.
In Rotherham, close to my diocese, a hotel housing migrants was set alight. In France, the Libération newspaper called Britain a “Disunited Kingdom”. What do we make of this? How do we respond? What does it tell us about ourselves? I hope that this debate will be an opportunity to reflect on these things and on our common identity, of which our communities and institutions are such a vital part. I am very grateful to the usual channels for allowing us on these Benches to have this debate and to give this important issue space before your Lordships’ House.
The work needed to build stronger, more supportive and more socially cohesive communities must involve us all. Although the summer’s riots were fuelled by hideous extremist rhetoric, which came from mysterious places online, what happened took place on our streets and in our communities. While there were extremist forces at play, we also need to face the uncomfortable truth that, although the rhetoric was extreme, many of the people involved in the riots were not. We know from the courts that more than half of those charged with offences such as violent disorder came from the country’s most deprived 20% of neighbourhoods. This means places with the worst health outcomes, with lower levels of qualifications, where employment is at its lowest and where the impacts of austerity, the pandemic, a cost of living crisis and rising inflation have hit hardest, intensifying those feelings of being left behind. That was made all the worse by social media’s wildfire of disinformation, and has been fed by years of hard and soft extremist rhetoric.
I recognise and praise the years of important work done by reviews carried out by Dame Sara Khan, the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, and the noble Lord, Lord Walney, as well as the ongoing work being carried out by many organisations, including the Together Coalition, British Future, Belong and many more. On policy, there is much expertise to draw on, and as such, many of the policy elements are known, but the deterioration of public services is a causal factor in the ignition of violence over the summer, and their revitalisation is essential reparative work.
Education, housing availability, employment and the state of the health service have all been further impacted by the cost of living crisis, and the well-being of communities and individuals is closely tied up with them. The housing crisis and unemployment, among other things, as we know, are most pronounced for young people, which is so significant when we consider issues of civic engagement. One in five councils is facing bankruptcy, which is an extraordinary challenge, given that they are such critical local agents for cohesion at a time when all our communities are changing.
The impact of the pandemic on each of these things was unprecedented, and I hope that noble Lords with expertise will explore this further. It gives me no delight to say that amidst all the public service challenges, the aftermath of Covid has put a strain on trust—and trust is critical; it is not an unlimited resource.
Perhaps most important of all is that we are living in an increasingly digitised world. When the pandemic struck, most of our gatherings and meetings went online. That was an important lifeline for us all at the time, but as a result, the changes in how we were already beginning to understand and relate to each other in a digital world accelerated. Now, there is an increasing reliance on AI and automated decision-making, despite a lack of ability to regulate sufficiently the technology we depend on so much. This cannot continue. The rise of misinformation on social media is undermining trust in democracy itself and in the rule of law. The Khan review found that freedom-restricting harassment is on the rise, and while the online world offers us so much, we have serious work to do to mitigate the impacts it will continue to have on our hearts, our relationships and our mental health.
Why should platforms be allowed to continue to call themselves platforms? We are in danger of losing the philosophical debate, for surely, they are public spaces and should be regulated accordingly, especially those where children are likely to go. Of course, I recognise, support and have worked in this House for the things we are seeing in the Online Safety Act, but more is needed.
All these things shape our relationships with one another and with the world around us. According to this year’s Woolf Institute diversity study, one in 10 people in England and Wales do not know anyone well enough in their local area to ask them a favour. We know the names—well, maybe not all of us here, but some of us —of those who live in Coronation Street or Albert Square, but we do not know the names of our own neighbours. This is a tragedy, for the very best of British history is built on neighbourliness, and the loss of what is sometimes called “the economy of favours” is one we should all feel deeply: a culture where we look out for one another, not because we are told to but because it would never occur to us to do differently. But these actions, which build cohesion, flow from values that need to be taught and cherished.
From a Christian point of view, I would therefore dare to add that values are best protected and communicated by beliefs, customs, rituals and practices: the very things that are the lifeblood of faith communities. The soft power, the stuff of social capital that builds communities, is what might be measured by the social fabric index. This takes into account a range of measures, including employment rates and civic infrastructure. As I have already indicated, reports tell us that 23 out of the 27 places that experienced disorder last summer had a well below median social fabric score. We therefore face the challenge of healing and rebuilding. Many expert reports and reviews call on the Government to work on a social cohesion strategy. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about the Government’s thoughts and plans, especially on a cross-departmental national social cohesion strategy, and I welcome the inquiry on community cohesion by the Women and Equalities Committee recently announced in the other place.
Of course, all this is related to the policy areas I have mentioned. Without equitable access to housing, education and healthcare, social cohesion will not happen; nor will we be able to preserve a democracy in which everyone participates. Yet fewer than half of 18 to 24 year-olds exercised their right to vote in the last election, compared to three-quarters of people aged 65 and above.
Across the globe, many other democracies face fragmentation, driven by increasing disillusionment and division. Time series data in the UK shows that trust in government has decreased over the last four decades, alongside continuing low voter turnout and decreasing confidence in political parties and, of course, other institutions, not least the Church. Participation in civic life is therefore essential, and it is clear that if someone does not feel they have a stake in the governance of where they are, they will not engage. I believe that one part of the solution to this is devolution. I am therefore thankful for the work of successive Governments to make this happen.
I recently had a very substantial cooked breakfast—no kippers, unfortunately, but it was a very good breakfast—with the recently elected mayor of the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority, the first of these new bodies to combine rural and urban communities. What did we speak about? We spoke about values: where they come from, how they are nurtured, what happens when you lose them and how you get them back; and how it is shared values, shared story, shared belonging, and belief in a shared future that create cohesion and well-being across what can so easily seem to be insuperable difference.
These things are often best nurtured at a more local level, where people have a greater stake in the decisions that affect their lives. We need to be clear about this. Difference is a gift. We know from our observation of the natural world that it is biodiversity that creates mutual flourishing and the lack of diversity that can destroy the whole system. Our society is growing in diversity, especially ethnically and religiously, and we must embrace, celebrate and be curious about our differences, not scared of them. We will better understand those differences through governance at the local level, and this could be taken more seriously by government.
Having got this far through much my speech without really mentioning God, let me say again that these values, not least the values around our belonging to one another and the mutual responsibilities that go with it, are rooted in the Jewish and Christian scriptures that have formed so much of our national understanding, including the rule of law and the inherent and equal value of each person under the law.
The opening word of the Lord’s Prayer, which some of us say each time we come to this Chamber, is “our”, not “my”. Everything else follows. I might add that, in the New Testament, Jesus never asks us to love everyone. Loving everyone is sufficiently abstract and therefore relatively easy to do. Jesus asks us to love our neighbour. What that means is to love that very particular person who is sitting next to you—or perhaps in this place I should say opposite you—right now. Any vision of cohesion and well-being that is about the security of self at the expense of neighbour is not only insufficient for flourishing but doomed to miserable failure and economic stagnation, for we belong to one another in all our glorious diversity.
The local parish church and other faith communities provide a presence in every neighbourhood. The particular genius of the parish church and the parish system is that it preserves and communicates meaning, value and belonging in places where people can serve and be served, and discover fresh perspectives on what it is to be human and to be a human community.
In its report published this week, Theos notes that owing to their deep connection to and understanding of place, parish churches were central to the emergency response to the riots. The fruit of their relational work is seen, of course, in other faith communities. With others, the Church of England must continue to build and nurture these connections. This is happening up and down the country. I am inspired by, for instance, the peace walk that took place after the riots in Sunderland, the interfaith friendship that is happening in Smethwick, and the things I am learning from Muslim and Jewish groups that I work with in York.
“Social cohesion” is almost a verb: it is a process—something we work on and must continue to work on—and it requires active participation from us all. I hope experts and those with experience of interfaith work in the Room will be sharing their thoughts in this debate. It is incumbent on us in this place to articulate a vision of what it means to belong to one another, to build social cohesion and to nurture the values that will sustain us. I look forward to listening deeply to the experiences, contributions and examples of others.
Let me be clear: it is not just faith communities that shape this. There are so many community groups and others who give themselves to serving and building community. I am extremely grateful to everyone who has come today, on a Friday, to participate in this debate. I particularly look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sharma, and to draw on his experience of the global factors at work, including climate change. If the generations growing up feel that there is no future for the planet, how on earth will they feel they have a future in their local community?
Finally, with all that has been happening in the Church of England in recent weeks, I felt that I should end on a more sobering note. Unless institutions are safe spaces for children, families and vulnerable adults, the things that we all long for and believe in will not come to pass. It is often said of government that security and safety is the first priority. The recently published Makin review has again revealed shocking failures within the Church of England to safeguard children, and, in this case, vulnerable young adults. I pay tribute to the victims and survivors who came forward to disclose the horrors that they experienced. My heart goes out to them and I apologise for these shameful failings. Moreover, I pledge myself to work purposefully for independent scrutiny of safeguarding in the Church of England and greater operational independence. These are the next steps that we must take, and we have much to learn from others.
I hope that this debate will be an opportunity for all of us to reflect, discuss and explore policy, to offer what we can as representatives of different places and different perspectives, to commit ourselves and to work across this Parliament to build trust and hope and, in so doing, build socially cohesive communities and institutions. I beg to move.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, I do not know what the odds would be for someone being asked to speak immediately after an Archbishop on two successive days, but here am I, with a mood change from yesterday to today. Yesterday was perhaps elegiac and today might even risk being euphoric—we will have to see about that.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to be here and to contribute to this important debate, for which I thank the most reverend Primate. As I stand here, behind and above the Bishops, I am reminded that on Friday morning debates like this—accustomed as I have been to sitting on the other side of the House where I can look them in the eye—I always want to test the biblical knowledge of the Bishops. I begin, therefore, in sermonic mood, although I promise that I will soon release you from the captivity of that mood. This is really to challenge the Bishops.
The Bishops will know pretty well the opening verse of chapter 13 of the Epistle to the Hebrews. They will probably know it in the King James version—I see one or two of them who might just be in touch with something more modern—but, in the Greek, the word “philadelphia” appears in that first verse: brotherly love. If ever there were one word to encapsulate what I think is the driving force behind and the hoped-for outcome of this debate, philadelphia might be it. Because we like philadelphia and can wed our thoughts to teasing out meanings from that word, we tend to stop short and spend our time luxuriating in whatever philadelphia might be made to mean. But if you go on in the verse, you will find another Greek word, and it is equally important. It is “philoxenia”, which is a love of strangers. That complementarity of ideas seems to me to bring to our attention dimensions of the subject we are debating which it is important not to forget.
At the moment, I am prepossessed every working hour with preparing for meetings that I will be at on Monday, in Paris. I am a member of the delegation from this Parliament to the Council of Europe. I sit on its migration committee. Since I have been on it, we have been taxed with movements in the interpretation of the United Nations convention on refugees that have embraced, shall we say, wide extremes. The erosion of the original ideals of the convention have preoccupied the migration committee. It has been rather difficult for me, as a Labour member, sitting through meetings of the migration committee when the Conservative Government were putting through this House three Acts of Parliament that were at odds, I felt, with the lofty ideals of the convention, but that is not where I want to dwell.
The committee has given me the supreme honour of chairing one of its sub-committees. For a humble Methodist minister to be the chairman of a sub-committee is probably as high as it gets. I have fought very hard, since achieving that summit, to win time on the agendas of migration committees for the considerations of the sub-committee to be adequately dealt with.
What is the sub-committee? It is for diasporas and integration, which I think bears particularly on the issues before us today. I have worked with diasporas in this country for decades—Bangladeshi, Zimbabwean, Fijian, Ghanaian and many others. I belong to a diaspora: the Welsh on Gray’s Inn Road. I have won an hour on Monday—just one hour. I am hoping to persuade people that this subject deserves adequate attention and that we move from looking at the edges of the convention that we have all been worried about to the positive role that diasporas might play in shaping communities, as well as being places where people can gather for safety, cultural identity or whatever it is. I have prepared a paper that we will discuss on Monday with that in mind.
I am sure noble Lords will all want to know about the byzantine ways in which the Council of Europe does its work—I can see the look of longing on their faces. If I win enough signatures for the proposal I put forward on Monday, it will then go to the migration committee itself, where I will again have to win the arguments and support before it agrees to send it on to the parliamentary assembly in its full plenary body later in the process. I am rather hoping I can catch a mood here, because all my work with ethnic-minority groupings and diasporas suggests that they can play a terrific role positively to reshape the way we think about the multicultural society that we live in.
They are not just residual bodies where people can find safety, community and all the rest of it—a kind of passive receptivity—but agents for change in society at large. They can bring points of view to the attention of a larger society; they can shape local communities; they can add to the thinking of the rest of us. That is my hope, but I have to contend with two radically opposed understandings of multiculturalism. I have heard the term used in two diametrically opposite ways.
First is the idea that multicultural means there are all these microscopic bodies that we call diasporas, and they sometimes put their own objectives at the expense of others and form separate entities within the larger community. We do not want to live in a country with that kind of episodic way of looking at the way we organise ourselves. The other way is to glory in multiculturalism, which does not satisfy itself with one kind of cultural entity. It is an entity that can be enriched, receive innovation and stir the imagination for greater and more glorious things that we could all enjoy, if only we found the way to release the diaspora from looking inwards to looking outwards. There is already a lot of that happening. I am working with the Catholic agency for development, which is doing some map-making for diasporas, and I want to put all this thinking on to an evidence base.
Think of me on Monday. I now leave the debate for others to take further, but I have rather enjoyed this moment that started with the Bishops, and I have looked at the lowering of attention among the rest of your Lordships as the minutes have passed by.
Lord Lilley (Con)
My Lords, it is a daunting privilege to follow both an Archbishop and a Methodist preacher, but I participate in this debate because it is one of the few occasions in the year when we can hope to hear from the Lords spiritual—I welcome in particular the most reverend Primate’s contribution—some spiritual guidance based on the gospels, rather than on the Labour Party manifesto and the latest progressive critique of the last Government.
I hope to achieve a positive response and some answers from the Lords spiritual to the sort of questions that engage me as both a Christian and a Conservative, which are rarely addressed because it is assumed—I hope to challenge this, but not in an aggressive way—that if you are a Conservative you cannot be a Christian, and if you are a Christian you cannot be a Conservative. I want to think particularly about the political implications, if any, of our Lord’s injunction to love our neighbour as ourselves. When Christ asked that question, “Who is my neighbour?”, he told us the parable of the Samaritan. I do not need to repeat it, but we can all agree that one thing that shows is that there can be no discrimination between Samaritan and Jew, between Christian and Muslim, between any different people, on the basis of their colour. That is a clear lesson of that parable, but some conclude that our obligations must therefore extend to the whole world, and that our job to love our neighbour as ourselves means that we must love everybody throughout the world equally. Dickens parodied that in Bleak House, in a chapter on telescopic philanthropy, in which he had the characters Mrs Jellyby, who devoted herself to the Tockahoopo Indians, and Mrs Pardiggle, whose “rapacious benevolence” was directed towards the tribes of the Borrioboola-Gha in Africa, to the detriment of the people of their own country and even their own families.
At the other extreme are those who interpret the parable as meaning only that we should help those we personally come in contact with, and that if we meet someone wounded by the wayside we should help them, especially if others are passing by. But even in a community where everybody was motivated by genuine, generous, Christian charity, leaving that philanthropy and charity to anarchically express themselves would mean that some people get a lot of help and others get no help.
The Church itself recognised at an early stage that it had to create an embryonic welfare state. It pooled resources and helped both its own members and others in the society around it. The earliest Church, in due course, became a sort of welfare state through the churches and the monasteries. Then, after the abolition of the monasteries, the state began to take over with the Poor Law and, ultimately, the modern welfare state. As a result, we have moved a long way from the original Samaritan, who acted voluntarily. We, as members of the welfare state, contribute compulsorily. The Samaritan did not say, “Oh, there is someone in need. I will pluck some money out of the Levite’s wallet and some out of the priest’s wallet and give it to him and claim virtue”. He did it himself with his own means. We have to participate in the welfare state, and we cannot attribute to the welfare state the same moral virtue as we do to the Samaritan. If we did, I would be the most generous person in this place, because as Secretary of State for Social Security I distributed £200 billion of your money, in modern money, to the poor, the needy and so on. But it was not my virtue: I was simply doing what society had decided.
Ultimately, the welfare state exists; we agree to do that, with compulsion on ourselves to contribute, because of a sense of national solidarity. Here, I think we get to some questions that are often ignored. Most of us feel a hierarchy of obligation: to our family, to our immediate friends, then to our nation—of course there is an obligation to people outside our nation, but it is primarily to our nation. I ask the Benches opposite this: is that okay? Is it reasonable that we have a hierarchy of obligation, feel more obligation to those in our own country than to those in others, and feel that other countries should themselves have their welfare states and look after their own people according to the means they have?
Well, I suggest that we have to, because we cannot be open to the whole world; we cannot because our welfare level is greater than the norm, or median, income in many of the countries in the third world. My first career was working in developing countries on aid and development programmes, and the level of incomes then was dramatically below what people on welfare in this country got—so we cannot, for that reason.
Anyway, if we do, to the extent that we do, we find that generous-minded people in this House, who all have their own homes, start allocating housing that would have gone to people on the housing list to people from abroad. That is why there is resentment if there is an excessive influx from abroad—and not illegally: I mean, over the last 18 months, we have allowed a net inflow into this country of the population of Birmingham. Where are we going to build another Birmingham before we can build a single extra house for the people already here? We rarely hear about that from those who find any criticism of mass migration to be improper.
That raises the question: should we accept anybody who manages to get here? It is apparently legitimate that we try to stop them getting here—we try to stop the boats and smash the gangs, and no one has ever criticised Starmer for wanting to do that, but it is a bit odd that, when people manage to get here nonetheless, they are then effectively awarded prizes, very often at the cost of the least well-off in this country. Matthew Parris equated it to a rugby match: you can try to stop people getting across the line, but as soon as they get across the line and touch down, they are granted the prize of five points and can try to convert it into a goal. That is a funny business.
Anyway, it is always the least poor who get here. When I worked in Africa and Asia, none of the poor people I was working among ever talked of the possibility of coming to Europe: it was beyond their comprehension, the costs of travel were so much greater, and the knowledge through media was so much less that they did not. Now, the people who do get here are those who have access to a few thousand pounds, perhaps £10,000, which is an enormous amount of money in those countries—and we are saying, “Oh, well, we’re generous. We’ll allow them to stay. We mustn’t try to stop them”. I simply ask the question: why is it reasonable to try to prevent them coming here but not fair to try to deter them from coming here, as we did through the Rwanda programme?
There are lots of issues that we—and I—have to wrestle with, and I would like the bishops occasionally to wrestle with them. Is it reasonable that we have national solidarity or is that an evil and wicked thing? Is it reasonable that we give priority to the poor in our own country while recognising that charity, although it begins at home, does not end at home? We may have to offer help to countries that are overwhelmed by some disaster, but then, normally, we should expect people in other countries to look after themselves and our duty is to the poor, needy and vulnerable in our own community.
Lord Bird (CB)
I really like the idea of speaking in this debate about community. I will start with a model that I invented and applied in a city—a town, actually, because it does not have a cathedral—in 2018. I had a conference in this town with the Big Issue and a number of other people, and we went and did something which we called an MCM, a “mercenary community model”. It was completely mercenary: there was nothing about love, kindness or community; it was all about mercenary concerns.
What did we do? We went to this town, which was stricken at the time because it had run into problems—I think the local government had been bankrupt or almost bankrupt. We chose the town randomly. We called the conference, got the biggest employer and other people to pay for part of the conference, and we did something mercenary. One of the things we did was contact some estate agents who had buy-to-lets—I think one had 150 of them. Every month, he had to cut the grass or pay someone to do it, and he had to do all sorts of other things: repair fences, fix windows and all that. We went to him and said, “We’re going to get you to buy the services from a local housing association who are trying to expand the number of their tenants who work”. I do not know whether noble Lords know but, on average, a housing association will have 70% of its tenants unemployed or economically inactive. This housing association wanted to expand its grass services and repair services and to take on staff from the people who were its tenants. Brilliant—we put somebody who had a social mission with somebody who wanted to look good. And, let us be honest: if anybody really needs to be looking good today, it is an estate agent.
We went to the local NHS. I do not know whether they all have this, but this one had this person—it is normally a doctor—who was responsible for social relationships in the community. We said to them, “You know what? There’s a bakery that employs largely women who have had many disasters in life: they’ve married the wrong guy, been beaten and thrown out, all sorts of things like that. They may have drink or drug problems”. This was a social bakery. We said to the NHS, “Wouldn’t it be a good thing if you bought your bread from them?” So it did: it bought nine thousand loaves a month. We did a number of things like that. I am sorry: this may sound as though I am making a joke—I am a devout ex-Catholic, so maybe I am allowed to say this —but I did not go there and say, “Isn’t it lovely”, and, “Let’s be nice to each other”; I kept looking for ways in which I could award people what I called a “social echo”.
What happened when Covid came was that we had managed to stitch together a community. I even produced a magazine for it, which I called Darning Street—sewing together the community. When Covid came, we had managed to do this, we had already laid the ground and done the work for old people who were on the edge of society, so to speak, and needed food. We knew who was in the community, and it all started from a mercenary desire to get people together and look good. I really believe in the power of getting people to look good. If Rio Tinto-Zinc wants to come and give me £5 million to spend for the benefit of the most disfranchised people in Britain, I am going to make them look good. That is how I got my money. I got the money to start the Big Issue from a large multinational company called the Body Shop. I went into business to make it look good, that is where I am.
I want some more grown-up thinking. I want to see Social Echo reformed. The problem with Social Echo, the reason it fell to pieces, was because it was all based on personalities, and if you change a few personalities, you fall to pieces. I have come just to give noble Lords an optimistic view of how we could rebuild communities if we started looking at who is in the community and what business functions in the community. Rather than a situation where you knock on someone’s door because you want to get a few bob from them to build something or other, what we really need is to find a way for people to trade with each other and by trading with each other, transform the community and build a better community.
Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to speak in this debate, which always has a particularly important place in the calendar. I look back fondly at our debate this time last year on families and the really wonderful work that the outgoing most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury did on Love Matters, helping people accept families as they are in the present world. These are not always wonderful—we remember RD Laing and the schizophrenogenic mother—but, for the most part, families are the building block of society. That seems to me to be the right place then to move into social cohesion, such a critical issue.
I am alienated by the Library briefing referring to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe to give me my definition of social cohesion. Social cohesion goes back to Durkheim, the French sociologist and founder of sociology, 150 years ago; to Max Weber and Karl Marx trying to understand how societies would operate in the face of declining social and religious factors and the change in the workplace. They talked about social cohesion and the outfall of suicide, delinquency and deviance if social integration was not properly respected. Of course, in today’s world, social cohesion is even more difficult.
One reason I became Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, when my boss had asked me to take a much chunkier department, was because my observation, as a social scientist, was that the framework that held people together was increasingly disintegrating. People were held together by the docks, the steelworks, the mines: that was the drumbeat of communities. In a world where people work from home, those common causes are no longer there, and it is the DCMS responsibilities that hold people together. Going to the Last Night of the Proms is an act of social cohesion. Going to the cup final at Wembley is an act of social cohesion: people are there together, regardless of their class, their background and so on. Museums, sport and galleries are all ways of creating social cohesion in a world where it is not always the Church that provides that cohesion. I regret that.
There was a time when political parties created social cohesion. Anybody who went to my constituency, when I was first an MP, joined the Tory party not because they were Tories but because they would meet nice people. I know that it was the same in a lot of Labour constituencies, but it is not like that any more. The work of the Church, and all faith groups, is enormously important because it gives meaning to life, it helps the needy, it helps the lonely and it helps people through the life cycle. The great thing about faith groups—religious, Muslim, Hindu, Christian—is that you celebrate birth, you celebrate adolescence, you celebrate marriage and you prepare for death. This is how we create communities that care for each other and understand each other. It was shocking, the most reverend Primate’s comment about people who are so obsessed with being online, they do not have a friend. How often do we see that with children? Their friends are their online friends. How dangerous and sinister is that?
I want to talk about this new development, articulated by Dame Sara Khan as “freedom-restricting harassment”. That is a rather fancy name, but we see it in the cancel culture in schools and universities—the idea that people are not free to speak the truth as they see it. The joy of the House of Lords is that we cannot be intimidated; we can say what we like without even having to be afraid of our constituents getting at us afterwards, as those who have been in the Commons will understand. I have spent many years in universities, as have many, and my message to graduates getting their degree is always, “University is the place where you have created your values, you decided who you are. It is not just about facts and knowledge, it is about wisdom, trust, values and what you believe to be right for the future”. The fact that our universities are particularly international in nature is all the more important, because the stranger factor is so sinister and dangerous, but if you have learned together, you work together and understand different cultures—how important that is for the economy.
Those of us who are followers of McKinsey will recognise that diversity is one of the critical factors in successful businesses. I applaud employers and I think we should say more about them in terms of social cohesion, and the work they are doing on diversity and inclusion. It sounds very woke but it really matters. Can you be yourself at work? Can you be the best possible person you can be? Can you give 110% of your effort? Because if you are feeling insecure about being of a different ethnic group, sexual orientation or whatever, you are not able, you are not liberated, to do the best you can in your economic enterprise.
How much more important is this now too, with all this working from home, which I have viscerally opposed? Except for women, or men, with childcare purposes, I will not believe that working from home is a healthy thing to do. We are social people. We need to go to work. Young people need to go to work to see grumpy old women like me at work, and grumpy old people like me need to see young people who will explain to them about TikTok. This is how we share values and how we change. The sooner we move away from thinking that working from home is a wonderful thing, I shall be delighted. I accept that it has transformed life for many women, and I will allow it there, but otherwise nothing will convince me.
On democracy, the most reverend Primate made really serious comments about people failing to vote, their alienation and disinterest. I get very angry when I hear people say, “All politicians are in it for themselves”. If you want to do it for £80,000 a year or whatever it is, working seven days a week, you try. I meet a lot of people in the business world who sneer at politicians, and that really winds me up big time, but there is an issue about the effect of social media. This is familiar. When we all went to political meetings when we were young—long ago—people would argue and debate. You would never leave a political meeting thinking it was 10-0 or 8-2, everything was divided, but social media is about assertion. There are no facts, no evidence, no logic; there is assertion, and this vulgarises and polarises debate.
I commend the most reverend Primate particularly on his presidential address at the York Diocesan Synod last March. He quoted Jonathan Sacks, with whom I used to work a lot, talking about the temptation for religious leaders to be confrontational, like politicians. He said, “I am trying to resist this temptation, please pray for me. And please resist it yourself”. He also said that with this divisive mindset:
“Choices must be set out as stark divisions. Not to condemn is to condone … A prophet hears not one imperative but two: guidance and compassion, a love of truth and an abiding solidarity with those for whom that truth has become eclipsed”.
It seems to me that that is what we have to do. I want to draw attention to the English-Speaking Union, which encourages young people to debate, to take each other’s sides in an argument, to speak with logic and rational purpose—to become the citizens we need.
The Lord Bishop of London
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register, particularly as a commissioner on the National Preparedness Commission. I am glad to be taking part in this debate today. It is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, and I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sharma, who has much to offer this House. I have the privilege of being Bishop of London, and I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, that London is full of great diversity of political views. I extend an invitation to him to come and see where we wrestle with some of our Christian faith and politics.
The riots over the summer were a wake-up call to us all to prioritise community cohesion. There is much to be said about this, and I echo much of what my friend the most reverend Primate has already said. I am going to focus my remarks on two issues which are central to this topic but are particularly related to health, although they have a much wider application, and those two topics are trust and partnership.
First, on trust, as the most reverend Primate indicated, we have much to do to improve trust within the Church of England. Not least, we must ensure we have a greater survivor focus and introduce independent safeguarding and mandatory reporting. I join my friend the most reverend Primate in apologising for the shocking failures that the Makin report highlighted.
Moving wider, the pandemic was a world-changing event that impacted on all of us differently, but I am sure that everyone in your Lordships’ House was horrified by the high death rate. We know that those from ethnic communities were more likely to have caught Covid, to have been hospitalised and to have died from it. According to ONS data, the Bangladeshi population faced a death rate five times higher than the white British population. The Pakistani population’s rate was three times higher. Even within these brutal statistics, we cannot properly communicate the extreme and severe loss that some communities experienced. We know that there were unequal health outcomes before Covid, but in some ways Covid demonstrated the scale of them.
The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, reminded us in the introduction to the first report of the Covid inquiry that the state has a responsibility to protect its citizens. It is easy to see how the pandemic has damaged our communities’ trust in institutions, including the health service, and how that damage worsened during the events over the summer. We have already heard how important it is for us to celebrate and recognise our differences, and it is true that one of the greatest strengths of this nation is, in fact, our diversity, but the experiences of some receiving care with a lack of cultural competence tells us that we have a way to go. Part of this is a lack of understanding and celebration of difference for patients and staff. It is vital for us to understand our ethno-religious identities because they change our experience not just of health but of communities.
My Christian belief that we are all made in the image of God motivates me to ensure that we can do better here, but trust is key. Although having sufficient GP appointments available is important, what is more important is feeling confident that you will be listened to and understood. As we will no doubt be aware from our own communities, there were moments of brilliance throughout the pandemic in which faith groups demonstrated neighbourliness and commitment to service, even when people’s day-to-day lives were really restricted. There are lessons to be learned from their ingenuity in building support for their communities and about how to build trust out of a crisis situation. It is important that we recognise the huge amount of work carried out by faith groups while respecting the difference in values that we may have.
Partnership that utilises diversity is key to ensuring cohesion. Working for the good of a place that you live in and seeing a difference is one of the most important and fulfilling parts of our citizenship. We tend to have a greater appreciation and support for something we have helped to build, and it is good to see this encouragement being prioritised on my doorstep with the new City belonging networks established by the Lord Mayor and others across London. We saw wonderful examples of partnership working across local communities, faith groups, the NHS and voluntary and community groups where people in the midst of the pandemic worked together to provide community cohesion.
We are here to reflect on a moment of crisis over the summer, as is right. Indeed, the cumulative impact of previous moments of crisis in our nation and abroad, including serious conflict, mean that a time of fear and uncertainty, and even bereavement for some, is what they experience in the midst of their community. That makes it important that we work together. It is difficult but important work.
However, partnership and engagement with groups and people different from ourselves, particularly on the part of government, cannot be sought only during times of crisis or in reaction to a crisis. Sustained involvement that involves local communities over the long term is required to combat the short-termism of electoral cycles and funding periods. Some faith groups have been serving their communities consistently for generations. When this goes unrecognised, it is detrimental to trust. Indeed, building relationships over the long term and working in partnership are what will build resilience so that, when a crisis occurs, we are better able to cope.
We are encouraged by God in Jeremiah 29 to,
“seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare”.
I hope that this will be an opportunity for us to seek the welfare of our nation, communities and those who are different from us, for it is there that we find our own welfare.
Lord Sharma (Con) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it is an honour and a privilege to speak for the first time in your Lordships’ House, and it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. I start by thanking your Lordships for the incredibly kind welcome that I have received. I have genuinely felt that I have been enveloped in a blanket of good will, and I sincerely hope that that is going to continue for some time. My supporters at my introduction, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and my noble friend Lord Gascoigne have offered wise counsel over the past few weeks. I also want to put on record my thanks to all the House staff for all the support they have given over the past few weeks, particularly the doorkeepers, who have quickly worked out that I am not going to win any prizes in an orienteering competition and will gently point me in the right direction when I am going down the wrong corridor.
I know that convention dictates that new Members speak a little bit about their own background, but I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I keep that bit mercifully short because I want get to on to the substance of this debate—as they say in government, I will get into the detail of that in due course during my time here. To summarise, 14 and half years ago, I arrived in the Commons after a career in investment banking, proudly representing a constituency in my hometown of Reading. I served in a range of junior Minister roles before I entered the Cabinet as Secretary of State for International Development and then Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and subsequently as president of COP 26, the UN climate change conference in Glasgow. I can tell noble Lords that they were all really quite interesting perches from which to observe an incredibly tumultuous few years over the past few decades.
Let me turn to today’s debate. As other noble Lords have noted, we are living through an era of increasing uncertainty and change. One of the biggest changes the world is facing, with profound impacts for social cohesion, is climate change. As I speak on this subject, I refer your Lordships to my entry in the register of interests. In particular, I serve as co-chair of the Rockefeller Foundation’s climate advisory council and I am an adviser to two finance firms: SEB and EQT.
I want to take your Lordships back for a moment to COP 26 in November 2021. That conference, resulting in the Glasgow climate pact, was agreed by almost 200 countries. Frankly—I say this not immodestly—it achieved more than many had expected when we started the whole process. We saw increased emission reduction targets from countries. We saw more finance put on the table from developed countries to support developing nations, particularly to help them adapt to the changing climate. We managed to go from less than 30% of the global economy covered by a net-zero target to over 90% by the time we got to Glasgow. Just about every G20 country signed up. For the first time, in 26 of these annual meetings, we managed to get the world to agree to phase down the use of coal.
COP 26 was also the first business COP. It was the first time in these meetings that we had the business community coming in real force and making commitments of its own. These included $130 trillion of private capital through the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, committed to accelerating the decarbonisation of the global economy.
Despite that progress in Glasgow, at the time I described COP 26 as a “fragile” win. I said that the goal that the world agreed in Paris in 2015, to limit average global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, was on “life support”. I said that because, although commitments are difficult to extract from countries—I can tell your Lordships, they are really difficult—getting those countries to implement those commitments on time is even harder.
Yes, there has been some progress on commitments made. In 2017, for instance, one in 70 new cars sold in the world was an electric vehicle; this year it will be one in five. On current trends, renewables sources are on course to generate close to half of global electricity by 2030. That is vitally important, as 75% of global emissions are energy related. But the reality is that the world is not doing nearly enough to cut global emissions and arrest global warming. Last year was the hottest on record. That record is expected to be broken this year, with 2024 set to be the first year to breach the totemic 1.5 degrees limit. Just about every day, we see the terrible impacts of the changing climate on millions of lives and livelihoods around the world—many billions of dollars of costs to infrastructure and business, all of it testing social cohesion. Ultimately, climate change does not recognise borders.
We also know that climate change exacerbates existing risks—water security, food security, migration risk—further testing social cohesion. In 2022, millions more people in the world were displaced due to climatic events than conflicts. Yes, many of them moved within their own countries or regions, but can we imagine what might happen if parts of the global South eventually become uninhabitable because of climate change? Where will these people move to?
But, just as the science has become starker and the risks posed by climate change have become clearer, countries and businesses have very much recognised the economic opportunities offered by pursuing a net-zero agenda—for jobs, for growth and for inward investment. However, one of the key constraints has been deploying finance at the scale that is needed; this was a key topic of discussion at the COP we have just had in Baku. Public finance is important, but the reality is that much of the finance required will need to come from the private sector. There is a shortfall in how much is being deployed annually, particularly in developing economies, where last year we saw cash outflows, not inflows.
With the right policy stimuli—planning reform, a green skills revolution and financial incentives for individuals and communities to take up green technologies and accept infrastructure locally—I remain confident that we will win the battle for net zero in the developed countries. But my concern is that we risk losing the climate war in developing nations unless we can significantly scale up the private finance needed to transition those emerging economies. There are ways to do this. I do not have time now, but I hope that this will be the subject of a future debate in this House.
Leaders around the world face many immediate challenges: war, trade conflicts and an increasingly fractured geopolitics which is picking at the very seams of the current world order. But, among all of this, the chronic threat from climate change continues to get worse. We need to treat this for what it is: a climate emergency. If we get it right, we can transition to a cleaner, greener and more prosperous world, with stronger and more cohesive societies. I look forward to advocating for that kind of world during my time in your Lordships’ House.
Baroness Helic (Con)
My Lords, I welcome my noble friend and congratulate him on his maiden speech. He has done so much in 14 and a half years, serving as a Member of Parliament and as a Minister and Secretary of State. Above all, as president of COP 26, he did the impossible, uniting nearly 200 countries to commit to the Glasgow climate plan. His experience and dedication will be invaluable in this place. I look forward to his future contributions and the impact that he will undoubtedly have on our thinking, particularly on climate change. I sincerely hope that the blanket of good will does not cool down in the meantime.
I declare my interest as a board member of More in Common. I welcome this vital debate, as social cohesion matters. It is not merely an abstract ideal; it is the very fabric of our national unity and resilience. It embodies our ability to pull together, rely on one another and foster a stable and prosperous society. Today, we face unprecedented pressures on social cohesion. According to research by More in Common, Britons increasingly feel that the United Kingdom is divided. Since January, the proportion of people who describe the United Kingdom as divided has increased from 57% to 78%. The main divisions people identify are between the rich and poor, between immigrants and those born in the United Kingdom, and between left and right.
Britons view the UK as atomised and individualistic. When asked to describe the sense of solidarity in the UK, 71% selected “It’s everyone for themselves” while 29% said “We’re all in this together”. Furthermore, 43% believe the United Kingdom is more divided now than at any time in their lifetime. Three-quarters of Britons are concerned about racism, Islamic extremism, far-right extremism and religious divisions. A broad majority are also concerned about anti-Semitism, at 62%, and Islamophobia, at 71%.
From geopolitical turmoil and global pandemics to economic crises and technological innovation, including migration, our societal bonds are being tested like never before. This reality demands our attention and action. I argue that neither the right nor the left of the political spectrum has all the answers. The centre might. That is where we must seek common ground before the sense of division and fragmentation is entirely hijacked by those who claim to be the only ones to understand British people and the only ones who can speak for them.
I will focus on three issues: migration, integration and foreign policy. Migration is an unavoidable and undeniable feature of our times, and as a nation of immigrants we must recognise the indispensable contribution that migrants have made to our economy and culture.
However, we must also face some hard truths. The surge in immigration has placed immense pressures on public services, creating an environment where social cohesion begins to erode, fostering an “us versus them” mentality that, as we know, stirs division and resentment. While there is no evidence that refugees pose a political, social, economic or security threat, polling shows that people are concerned. Those concerns should not be dismissed outright. This places a particular responsibility on Governments to find the resources to address the domestic implications of migration, while those not in government must respond responsibly.
The responsibility to help is determined not by geography but by adherence to universal human rights and values. It transcends religion, culture and ethnicity. We need not to be reaching for the lowest common denominator in our response to the refugee crisis, but to strive to live up to the highest ideals and our highest standards. Every country in the world—not just in Europe, not just here—must be part of solution.
We should also be mindful of the distinction between economic migrants who are escaping extreme poverty and refugees who are fleeing immediate threats to their lives. All people on the move in these tragic circumstances must have their human rights and dignity respected. We should not stigmatise anyone for aspiring to a better life, but refugees face immediate danger, persecution and death, and their rights are enshrined in international law. Effective reception and screening are crucial to ensuring that claims are assessed and protection is extended to those who really need it.
Secondly, integration must be a fundamental part of our immigration policy. Failing to integrate new citizens creates parallel communities divided not just by geography but by culture and identity. Effective integration goes beyond the English language. It requires bridging social and cultural gaps through comprehensive educational programmes that instil core British values of justice and fairness and promote community engagement through participation and volunteering.
We must not be shy about expecting a reciprocal relationship between new citizens and their new homeland. It is a two-way relationship. It is not only about accepting what Britain has to offer, such as security and opportunity, but about giving back. As someone who has experienced this process personally, I can say that being a citizen is not just about holding a British passport. It is about contributing to society, respecting and upholding British laws and values and strengthening those values through our individual and collective example.
On our foreign policy, we must reflect and strike a balance between the national interest and global responsibilities. I believe that in some cases, we have fallen short on both. I welcome the Prime Minister’s recognition at the Lord Mayor’s banquet that global problems increasingly manifest as local challenges. When it comes to the Middle East conflict, the impact on social cohesion in the United Kingdom is staggering. According to More in Common, 49% worry about the rise of anti-Semitism in the UK, 47% worry about the rise of Islamophobia, 55% are concerned that it will lead to increased tensions between religious groups and 58% are worried about the potential for increased Islamic extremism. I ask the Minister: what comes after the Prime Minister’s recognition of the impact of foreign policy on domestic policy and cohesion? What will change after that recognition?
We must recognise the pressure on our social cohesion, not only in migration and foreign policy but as a part of a wider crisis in global governance. Over the past 15 years the number of forcibly displaced people in the world has surged. The crisis is unsustainable and beyond the capacity of international humanitarian organisations or countries like ours to manage alone. It is driven by a systemic failure to resolve conflicts. Nothing tells us more about the state of the world than the movement of people across borders. We must look for long-term solutions. We cannot donate our way out of these crises, nor can we bomb our way out of them. We cannot solve the problem simply by taking in refugees. We need to find diplomatic solutions to end those conflicts.
Our historical commitment to defend freedom has often strengthened our national cohesion. We must continue that legacy as a source of collective pride and use it as a foundation to tackle the challenges of the day.
Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I remind the House that I speak as a non-affiliated Member of your Lordships’ House.
It is a great pleasure to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sharma, on his maiden speech. I know Reading well; indeed, I appeared at the Hexagon many years ago and, thankfully, the population of Reading has forgotten that. We will gain much from his contribution and his wisdom.
I congratulate my friend, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, on opening this debate. Perhaps it is more worrying for him than for me that, as an atheist, I could probably have delivered 95% of his speech without flinching. I agree with everything he said.
We face very dangerous times. Politics has failed, as have politicians and institutions of state, when we choose power not to proceed positively but to punish and misrepresent. We then indulge in the politics of fear and hate to scapegoat and blame others. I believe we are better than that—we are all indeed better than that—but we are on the brink of failure, and I fear what may come. As the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York reminded us, the loss of trust takes everything in its wake.
Communities both at home and abroad are facing deep uncertainty, and we need to be radical in tackling the roots of disengagement, disempowerment and disfranchisement—the feeling of being lost, often, when you are still living in the place where you were born and where you feel you once belonged. That sense of not belonging, and loss of identity, is what others feel when they have no option but to abandon their roots, homes, families and language and seek a future elsewhere —migrants. One way or another, we have all been migrants and could so easily be again: in a mass of people who are wilfully misrepresented, tragically defamed and often presented as a threat by politicians and the media in order to gain or retain power over others.
We need to recognise at home and abroad that the problems that happen elsewhere are as important as if they are happening to us. Our communities need equality at their heart, along with respect and dignity, abiding by the same laws, with the same rights and protections that the law affords us. We must recognise that education nurtures and sustains throughout life, giving opportunities for all to change direction, and that information and education are at the centre of individual empowerment and the raising of aspirations.
We also need to recognise our historic obligations, that there is a moral imperative—and if that is not good enough, an economic imperative—in putting right the historical wrongs of our empire. We need to turn our backs on racism, fear and hatred and become the enemy of fear, hatred and racism, standing in the shoes of others, remembering that the denial of the rights of one person or group, especially the most defamed or misrepresented, is ultimately the denial of our own rights.
As politicians, we need to do more—more explaining but, above all, more listening. We need to call out what is going on in the world: to call out what is going on in Gaza, and not be accused of anti-Semitism when we criticise the Israeli Government for failing to abide by international legal obligations.
I put to your Lordships the voice of Sister Christine Frost, who has worked for 56 years in the East End of London. She says: “Community cohesion is one of the most valuable and priceless principles, which I believe politicians ignore at their peril. It enables communities to tackle racism before it can take root, so that we can re-own our common, rich humanity”. She continues: “Why, I ask my myself, do politicians sow so much discord and division? Because so few have walked in our shoes, experienced downright neglect, had to choose between heating and eating, know the cost of renting from greedy landlords or are forced to work two or three jobs, just to get by”.
I continue with her words: “Here in the East End of London, the disconnect between the rich and powerful and the voiceless and powerless can be very stark. It’s in our face. For us, community cohesion is the only glue holding us together. Our politicians could and should be using their authority—which we the voters have entrusted them with—to heal the evident disconnect and inequality of opportunity, health and care provisions, education and housing. Do you even know how unequal our society has become? Please don’t promote community cohesion as a cover-up; get down to the underlying roots and help us make this something real and lasting”.
Yesterday, reflecting on another woman who helped change the world, we gathered in Brussels to remember the Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead, who died just over a year ago. She did something: she challenged power and the institutions and religions that hold people back and deny women and minorities their rights while simultaneously talking about the good of scripture. She challenged her own Government and other Governments, her own party and other parties, to do the right thing. She stood against tyrants during her time in the European Parliament and as chair of the Afro-Caribbean and Pacific joint parliamentary assembly. Whether the obstruction, hatred or abuse was coming from a developed or a developing country, she called it out. She spoke truth to power, particularly when it did not want to be heard.
She changed the world for the better by facing down the criticism and getting on with the work, knowing that inequality is the enemy of us all, particularly those who have no voice. We gathered in Brussels to celebrate her legacy, and her work goes on. She empowered others. Arguably, that is all that we as politicians need to do: empower the next generation for all that needs to be done, the challenges we have to face and the battles that can be won only on a multigenerational basis. Then, and only then, will we truly address the problems and empower others.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York on selecting this topic for debate, and thank him for bringing faith into the debate, which I will talk about more in a minute. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Sharma on his excellent first contribution.
I care greatly about this issue. As my entry in the register of interests discloses, I serve on a number of organisations in the Jewish community and related outreach organisations. Social cohesion is under real threat. A survey published in October this year by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, where I serve as president, demonstrates that more than one-third of British Jews have experienced anti-Semitic harassment, or worse, in the last year—a much higher proportion than the figures issued by the Home Office, which show only the incidents that are reported. Even this morning, at 4 am, the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne was firebombed while worshippers were inside. I am sure that your Lordships will join me in sending our best wishes to that community at this difficult time.
For decades, the Jewish community in this country has been the example par excellence of how to be part of a wider society and contribute to it while simultaneously maintaining its own sense of religious and Jewish identity. We can look at the contribution made to arts, law, business, philanthropy, science and, indeed, your Lordships’ House. But that is showing clear signs of change since 7 October. A study published by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research in October contains several indicators of Jews closing in on themselves, hiding their Jewish identity in public for fear of hostility, feeling uncertain or uncomfortable among non-Jewish friends, gravitating towards Jewish friends and retreating into the Jewish community spaces, where they feel safer, in search of solace and solidarity.
As president of a synagogue, I am always pleased to see more regular worshippers, but it saddens me that this increase is due to fear and concern for our presence. None of these is a good indication for social cohesion in Britain, and they all reflect a sense that it is becoming harder to feel comfortable or welcome as a religious or ethnic minority in this country. It has now reached the point where Jewish families are planning to leave the UK, as they no longer regard it as a safe place to live and bring up their families. I have spoken to many who have decided it is now time to leave.
Just a few weeks ago, the co-founder of the Outset Contemporary Art Fund, Mrs Candida Gertler, OBE, resigned from her role in the arts world because of vile, anti-Semitic sentiments, which she said seek “to marginalise and dehumanise” Jewish people. Worse, she pointed out that the institutions in the arts sector have failed to confront hate and
“allow prejudice to take root”.
These are not isolated incidents. The hate in the arts and literary worlds, which are now seeking to ban people who they call Zionists, sends a chilling effect down the spines of all Jewish subjects in the UK. We are sponsors of the Jewish film festival, which struggled to find cinemas to screen Jewish films. The cinemas provided all sorts of excuses as to why they could not do so. Even today, the Exeter International Dance Film Festival refused to screen a film about the Nova music festival in southern Israel.
Yesterday, Amnesty International, a somewhat flawed organisation, came up with a baseless report which has been described as a
“blood libel against the Jewish state”,
which will, of course, incite others to blame UK Jews for these grievances, as has been the case at Goldsmiths, where students forced the somewhat spineless college to remove the names of Jewish donors who had given in good faith to that college. We have seen anti-Semitism on campus, online, in workplaces and in the NHS. It has even been shown to Jewish pupils on the way to school, three of whom were glassed in Stamford Hill, with one girl receiving life-changing facial injuries.
CST found that, in the majority of anti-Semitic incidents in the first half of 2024, the ethnicity of the offender was provided and involved non-white offenders. A pattern is developing and there is a change in the demography of the offenders. It is clear that criticisms of the State of Israel’s actions, which are motivated by self-defence after 7 October, morph into hostility against UK Jews.
That includes actions by the UK Government, who, although having helpfully clarified that there is no genocide in Gaza, confirmed by the fact that there is no direct targeting of innocent civilians, then took the purely political action of banning arms sales and, unlike France, enforcing the ICC’s morally corrupt decision, which they must have known would lead to an increase in anti-Semitism and fuel such things as the marches in London, which simply terrify the Jewish community. Some 66% of British Jews avoid going to city centres when demonstrations happen, for fear of their safety. One such march, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, took place last month past my synagogue, Westminster Synagogue in central London. It stopped for seven minutes outside our synagogue, shouting the genocidal, inciting slogan, “From the river to the sea”.
What can be done? Outreach instances such as the brave visit to Preston mosque last month by Manchester’s Jewish leaders, for which all parties should be congratulated, was promptly condemned by 5Pillars. A protest at Birmingham University has called for “Zionists off our campus”. We know what they mean. So, will the Government tie their approach to extremism in with their approach to social cohesion? Extremism is not only violent behaviour, and the continuing crossing of red lines is a threat not just to the Jewish community but to national security.
The Minister can be of great assistance. I call on him, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, did, to convene the moderates—people who are like-minded and feel they can work together and do something together. I have worked with the marvellous Council of Christians and Jews. There is not a council of Jews and Muslims; I do not know if there is a council of Christians and Muslims. Such initiatives need a little help, and perhaps the Government might think further about how to be the catalyst for dialogue and constructive conversations.
We need to ask ourselves what kind of country we want to live in today. Do we want to live in one that loosely and brazenly condemns minorities as guilty simply by virtue of their religious or ethnic identity, or for their profound and legitimate feelings of attachment to a country elsewhere, as well as to Britain; one that allows a complex conflict in another part of the world to spill over on to the streets of this country in ways that make some of our citizens fear for their safety and withdraw into their siloed communities; one that tolerates speech and behaviour that is hurtful, offensive or downright racist, but is too scared to call it out for fear of a backlash?
This country has long been known for its decency, tolerance and openness. However, the experience of the Jewish community over the past year suggests that it is rapidly losing that reputation. It has often been observed that a rise in anti-Semitism is like the proverbial canary in the mine: a sign of increasing social tension or even collapse. We need the Government to have a plan and to enact it. Speeches are fine, but it is actions which are now needed. We are seeing a rise in anti-Semitism here in Britain today. The data is extremely clear, and the implications should be too.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Lab)
My Lords, wow—what a thought-provoking debate, and we are not even half way through. I thank the most reverend Primate for securing this debate. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sharma, on what was an outstanding and sobering maiden speech. I look forward to hearing when there might be more time to discuss the issues he raised. It was also lovely to be reminded of the legacy of Baroness Kinnock. What a lovely debate so far.
I want to focus on something of quite a practical nature: the role of volunteering in bringing communities together, especially at times of change and in this time of global uncertainty. I declare an interest as the chair of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations—the NCVO. It is the largest membership organisation for the voluntary sector in England and speaks up on behalf of 16,000 members, from the very largest charities down to very small local community groups. We know that these organisations are often at the heart and soul of our communities. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, by communities, I mean communities in the widest sense—communities of interest, communities of concern and communities that bring together those with shared values, not just communities rooted in place.
Resilience for our charities and for our communities go hand in hand. Local charities are deeply rooted in our towns and villages, as we know. They create spaces for us to connect and support local causes. As we have heard, during the pandemic, after the invasion of Ukraine and, as the most reverend Primate said, following the summer riots, we saw how crucial it was for people to come out on to the streets to support their communities and tidy up—to do those very basic things, and hold each other in creating a sense of hope. The contributions of communities and volunteers extend beyond crisis, although they are perhaps most visible in crisis; they represent the spirit of citizenship, which, as we have already heard, is so vital.
Volunteering is a cornerstone of civic participation. Research from 2023 showed that children who volunteer are more likely to become active voters, even if they come from homes where politics is not a big topic around the kitchen table. Who cannot have been encouraged to hear on the radio only recently about the Scouts going out delivering Christmas cards and doing all the things that young groups do with such incredible enthusiasm?
Unfortunately, formal volunteering is in decline. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Community Life Survey showed a drop in monthly volunteering from one in four people in 2019-20 to one in six people in 2021-22. That is a significant change. Pro Bono Economics highlights a longer-term downward trend, with a decline of over 10% in formal volunteering since 2015. This is worrying for small grass-roots charities which depend heavily on volunteers, as well as for the larger, more famous groups. Recent data from the VCSE Data and Insights National Observatory at Nottingham Trent University shows that six out of 10 charities are struggling to recruit volunteers.
We have an opportunity to turn that round, with the right approach to policy-making. The NCVO’s Time Well Spent survey gives us some insights as to why fewer people are volunteering and what might help to reverse the trend. Flexibility is key. Many non-volunteers said that they would be more likely to volunteer if opportunities were more flexible. Satisfaction is lower among disabled volunteers, those from deprived areas and people from minority backgrounds. This suggests we can make volunteering more inclusive. Financial concerns also play a role, especially among young volunteers, with only half feeling confident that their expenses would be reimbursed. We know from the Community Life Survey that people from deprived areas are less likely to volunteer with the high cost of living playing heavily on their minds. This could be something that the Government need to worry about getting worse.
Despite these challenges, there is a lot of untapped potential, as 62% of people who have not volunteered in the last three years said that they could be encouraged to volunteer. There is a huge opportunity for government to support the voluntary sector. I would like the Minister and those he collaborates with in government to think about a few policy areas.
I am not expecting any rabbits out of the hat today, but the first thing we should look at is the right to request paid leave for volunteering. I have worked with many blue-chip companies around the UK that want to support their staff to volunteer, so let us make this something really easy for people to request. That would allow more people to give their time without putting too much pressure on business and public services.
Secondly, we should look at amending Section 50 of the Employment Rights Act, to ensure that reasonable time off for trustee duties could be allowed. We do this for school governors, who already get time off under this legislation. Trustees could play a vital role in improving the levels of volunteering. They are the ones who lead charities; let us give them, as we do school governors, some time off to do that vital job. There are currently 100,000 trustee vacancies, so that could be improved with positive policy thinking.
Thirdly, we need to ensure that everyone—and this is a big one—claiming benefits can volunteer without fearing they will lose their benefits. Volunteering should not be seen as something that undermines a person’s availability to work. It is not something that means that they are less likely to find their way back into work. Volunteering can build confidence and experience, and allow people to make a valuable contribution to the community. Let us think about that in a positive way.
Policy decisions can, I am sure, have an impact on volunteering. Volunteering is essential to safeguarding our social cohesion; as we have heard, it is the glue that keeps our communities together. So, volunteering is vital for the future of our communities. We need to turn the decline around and I am absolutely positive that, with the commitment of this Labour Government, that can be done, to draw on their collaborations across government and to think of volunteering as a positive, not a challenge, to our communities. Thank you.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I welcome this debate and I warmly congratulate my noble friend Lord Sharma on his impassioned maiden speech and welcome him to the House: he will make a great contribution.
How do we define social cohesion? What do we mean by social solidarity, shared values and social mobility? Finding unity in the midst of our diversity is our task. It is a social contract between different communities and an acceptance and championing of the liberal British values of freedom of speech, equality under the law, freedom of expression, democracy, fairness, equality of opportunity, mutual respect, neighbourliness, philanthropy and kindness. It also means a shared understanding of what makes our country: culture, civic engagement, history and heritage. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in its 2023 report listed
“sense of recognition”
and
“sense of belonging”
as key to social cohesion.
Notwithstanding the big global events—including conflict and uncertainty abroad—that have been discussed earlier, we have to address the realities of life and the challenges here in the UK. Frankly, the UK has never been richer, healthier, more peaceful and safer. Yet, things are going wrong and people are unhappy. Many people do not feel a sense of community and cohesion. They feel alienated from politics and government, bystanders in their own country and at the margins of decision making and economic prosperity. As far back as 2011, YouGov found that the majority of people agreed with the statement:
“Britain has changed in recent times beyond recognition, it sometimes feels like a foreign country, and this makes me feel uncomfortable”.
Certainly, mass uncontrolled and unfettered immigration has been disastrous for true community cohesion, because it has occurred without the imperative of true integration and the upholding of our social contract. It is a fair social contract: welcome to the UK, try to speak English, work hard, obey the law, do not claim benefits, respect the UK’s enduring traditions, and make and build a better life. Mass migration has undermined social and community cohesion, as has hyper-social liberalism, globalisation and ultra-individualism.
On 28 November, the Prime Minister said that Britain had been subject to
“an open borders experiment … This happened by design, not accident … Brexit was used … to turn Britain into a one nation experiment in open borders”.
We have seen the consequences: the stalled per capita GDP, which has catalysed ghettoisation and social isolation, embedded welfare dependency and put huge pressures on our public services. We have seen the pernicious impact of social media among young people—as the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York stated—with the woke mind virus spreading and exacerbating discord between disparate groups by sex, gender, class, race, religion and ethnicity. We have seen the inability of Governments to deliver the most basic public services, despite record-high taxes and the burden on the working poor and small businesses while regulators fail to deal effectively with market distortions, dysfunction, monopolies, oligopolies and crony capitalism.
All these phenomena undermine the essence of community and social cohesion. It is why we have seen a rejection of the tired, visionless, managerialist political consensus in favour of communitarian politics: the politics of somewhere rather than anywhere, which recognises the importance of cultural and geographical rootedness for human well-being. It also sees local and national identity as wholesome and important, and values well-established traditional structures: family, sports clubs, village, town, county, country, parish. The ethos of social and economic liberalism by contrast represents selfish, egomaniacal, consumerist individualism. This gives rise to a lack of purpose, hopelessness, sadness, depression, lack of self-worth, worklessness and crime.
There was a time when many people would look to the traditional institutions, such as the Church of England, for guidance in a troubling world. But no more. The report published this week by Civitas, entitled Restoring the Value of Parishes, is a salutary and depressing critique of the leadership and management of the Anglican Church. I implore those on the Bishops’ Benches to return to the core role at the centre of our local and national life. Their centrality is vital in nourishing the parish network and providing spiritual sustenance, pastoral care, moral clarity and a framework to an anxious and discombobulated flock. My Church has lost its way and I hope and trust the Anglican family will recover its sense of purpose under a new leader.
Despite this, there is still hope. The UK remains one of the most successful examples of a multi-ethnic democracy in the modern world. I am indebted to Policy Exchange and its recently published report, A Portrait of Modern Britain: Ethnicity and Religion, which highlights the importance of fostering shared experiences and the bonds of social trust between different ethnic groups and across generations. It makes the sensible point that the term “ethnic minority” is increasingly meaningless. The Indian diaspora is different from the Afro-Caribbean, African, White British or Chinese communities and their experiences. But all believe:
“On balance, throughout history, Britain has been a force for good in the world”,
and:
“Children who are raised in Britain should be taught to be proud of Britain and its history”.
Indeed, we should celebrate such inclusive patriotism, our country’s record of industrial and scientific achievements, our proud history of parliamentary democracy and our abolition of the slave trade, when Wilberforce was not only the MP for Hull but also a Conservative. We should celebrate Magna Carta and our role in destroying the evil of Nazism and fascism in the Second World War. We should celebrate too our unifying moments, such as the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony in London, the vaccine rollout and Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
Over 50% of black and minority-ethnic Britons believe that someone of their race would be treated fairly in this country, and only one-fifth disagree. I endorse the report’s recommendations and invite the Minister to address these specific suggestions: a new national integration strategy, with the public sector equality duty interpreted to have integration at its heart; the creation of a statues of national celebration commission to identify historical British figures deserving of a statue, across all classes and ethnic groups; children to be taught to be proud of their national heritage and British history and traditions; reducing UK immigration dependency by developing new apprenticeships and skills bursaries; the Government agreeing to revivify the strategy to tackle place-based health inequalities; and for government agencies to disaggregate larger groups that are both ethnically and religiously diverse.
In conclusion, we live in a great country with a glorious history and heritage of which we should all be proud. Our challenge, for us and our children, is to bequeath a nation with a future that is safe, prosperous, proud, happy and united.
Lord Loomba (CB)
My Lords, I rise to contribute to this important debate with gratitude to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York for bringing our attention to the vital issue of social cohesion and the strength of supportive community life in an era of rapid change and global uncertainty. The Motion before us touches the very essence of our shared responsibility to uphold the values and practices that bind our society together, particularly when faced with challenges that so easily divide us.
Social cohesion is not merely the absence of conflict. It requires the active presence of respectful relationships, opportunities for meaningful participation and a shared sense of belonging. A society that cultivates these qualities not only survives periods of uncertainty, but thrives within them.
Drawing on my experience of working with disadvantaged individuals and communities, I would like to offer four key observations that I believe can enrich this discussion. First, social tensions are often framed in terms of divisions between groups of differing backgrounds. However, some of the most painful and damaging rifts arise within communities, and even within families. Disputes over norms, roles and expectations can fracture relationships just as deeply as cultural or religious divides. In my work with marginalised communities, I have witnessed individuals ostracised within their own families due to entrenched attitudes or outdated customs. Such internal divisions weaken the social fabric and diminish a community’s ability to act collectively. Addressing these fractures requires us to move beyond broad categories of identity to examine the relational dynamics that corrode cohesion from within.
Secondly, education remains a cornerstone of social cohesion, enabling individuals to navigate both change and resistance to it. Education fosters empathy and understanding, particularly during times of transformation. It also serves as a pathway to social mobility, equipping individuals with the tools they need to engage fully and confidently in society. However, education must extend beyond the acquisition of knowledge. It must be a process that cultivates dialogue, mutual respect and a shared understanding of our interconnected world. Curricula that include diverse perspectives and histories—both local and global—can counteract polarisation and promote a sense of common purpose.
Thirdly, cultural expression and the preservation of heritage are powerful instruments for building cohesion and resilience. When communities have the opportunity to share their traditions and their perspectives on shared heritage, they develop a stronger sense of identity and belonging. This, in turn, fosters mutual appreciation of diversity, enriching society as a whole. Community festivals, arts initiatives and storytelling programmes can break down barriers, replacing suspicion with solidarity. By creating spaces for cultural exchange, we allow trust and understanding to flourish.
Finally, I wish to underscore the corrosive impact of comparative disadvantage. When communities feel excluded from opportunities or experience restricted access to services, feelings of discontent and alienation often follow. These disparities breed resentment, fuel a sense of injustice and erode the very foundations of social cohesion. The recent economic challenges faced by many in the UK underscore the urgency of addressing such inequalities. A society that ensures fair and equitable access to opportunities and resources is one that builds cohesion and resilience. As we work to strengthen our communities, we must remain steadfast in supporting those who have been left behind.
In conclusion, social cohesion is not an abstract ideal but a practical necessity for navigating times of change and uncertainty. It demands commitment at every level of society, within families, communities and institutions alike. Education, cultural exchange and an unwavering focus on equity and inclusion are indispensable tools in this endeavour. I commend this House for recognising the importance of this issue and I urge us all to continue fostering the conditions for a more unified, supportive and resilient society. Thank you.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
I thank the most reverend Primate for his very moving opening to the debate, and I congratulate my new noble friend Lord Sharma on his quite excellent maiden speech. We are extremely lucky to have him on our Benches and I welcome him as a Member of this House.
You do not need to be a member of the International Relations and Defence Committee of your Lordships’ House, as I have the privilege to be, to appreciate how much change and global uncertainty we face. In our committee’s report, Ukraine: a Wake-up Call, we looked at lessons the UK should learn from the war in Ukraine, where social cohesion and cohesion of purpose have played a central role in all stages of the Russian invasion, showcasing them as essential components of defence.
Yet, here in the UK, defence has become something other people do; it is delivered by our Armed Forces, with the action usually taking place in some remote foreign field. This detachment and lack of understanding of what defence really means is becoming apparent in the debate around defence spending. No Government of any colour, it seems, are concerned about announcing increasing spending for the NHS, but the debate about why, how and when we might want to increase our percentage spend on defence is hampered by procrastination and vague promises.
Given that Russian forces have continuously targeted critical national infrastructure in Ukraine, and that here in the UK we experience numerous cyberattacks from malicious actors—only this week the National Cyber Security Centre highlighted the gap between the risks we face and our ability to mitigate them—is it time that we looked to the Scandinavian “all of society” approach, where we ask for more collective preparedness? Both Sweden and Latvia have recently released booklets with information about how civilians should react in a crisis or conflict situation. The Czech Republic has launched grey-zone exercises for the private sector. Germany has a long-standing tradition of social resilience, predominantly through its Technisches Hilfswerk—THW—a federal agency that provides training in disaster relief and boasts thousands of volunteers who provide rapid and efficient technical relief in emergencies anywhere in Germany and often across Europe. These solutions are as relevant in a crisis caused by extreme weather events as they are in a public-health emergency or a conflict.
In preparation for today’s debate, I came across the UK’s equivalent, the website prepare.campaign.gov.uk. I consider myself an interested and relatively well-informed citizen in this space, yet I had no idea before now that this existed. Can the Minister tell us whether they are any plans to develop the Prepare campaign and to raise its public profile? Does he know how many unique visits the website has had to date? He might have to write to me on that.
My experience in the healthcare and disability sectors have illustrated that there are too many areas where our society is not cohesive or well prepared. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London referred to the Covid inquiry module 1 report, which concluded that emergency pandemic planning
“generally failed to account sufficiently for the pre-existing health and societal inequalities and deprivation in society”,
and that there was a
“failure to engage appropriately with those who know their communities best, such as local authorities, the voluntary sector and community groups”.
Essentially, our pandemic plans were made by fit and healthy individuals who failed those with pre-existing health issues because of a lack of understanding of what services were essential to them. In my organisation, Cerebral Palsy Scotland, I see such a lack of understanding filter through everyday life, not just emergency planning. Our charity’s mission is therefore to build a stronger, more supportive community for our beneficiaries.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, referred to the NCVO briefing. As it says, charity resilience and community resilience go hand in hand. Local charities in particular, as the noble Baroness said, have deep roots in our communities. Yet these organisations, of which mine is but one, which are delivering essential services that the state cannot provide, are feeling threatened like never before thanks to the increased costs of employment, together with reduced funding opportunities. This will affect beneficiaries as well as public services.
The sector is facing a perfect storm and, as I have said before, I am deeply concerned. We face a situation in which organisations are closing due to cash flow, not because of their effectiveness or their impact. The charity sector is in crisis. If they are not shutting, they are cutting.
Social cohesion and strong, supportive community life are indeed essential, but too often there is a sense of “them” and “us”. This Government, I am afraid to say, seem to think that all things public sector are good, and that those of us in the private, charity or any other sector can just be squeezed a bit more to pay for it. This is unsustainable and short-sighted during challenging times.
Instead, I suggest that strengthening and protecting the UK’s national resilience and its critical national infrastructure is the responsibility of us all. It cannot be left just to government, the public sector or the military. We need a collective understanding of the risks and a collective effort to mitigate them. Only then, I believe, will we strengthen our community life and foster greater social cohesion.
Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell (Con)
My Lords, I thank the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York for his powerful and thought-provoking opening remarks. With any Motion this broad, there are multiple angles to discuss, and I agree with many of the points already raised. From individual families to local charities, many bodies in society deserve credit for binding communities together, but one essential group has been largely overlooked: the business community.
In a few weeks, many of us will be heading out of London for Christmas. I will be returning to Barwick-in-Elmet, a village on the outskirts of Leeds, less than 20 miles from York Minster. If one considers a village such as Barwick as a microcosm of the country at large, it is easy to see the importance of local businesses to community life. With its three pubs, two grocery stores, a fish and chip shop, a pizzeria, a café, a hairdresser and even a bike repair business, it is a hive of entrepreneurship. In contrast, other villages nearby do not contain any businesses supporting the immediate local community and feel like soulless commutervilles as a result.
Why are these businesses important? All too often, we forget the invaluable role that local businesspeople play in these communities—the corner shop owner who checks in on your elderly parents and notices when they do not pop in for their regular Saturday newspaper or midweek pint of milk, or the publican who throws regular social events to bring the local community together, which help alleviate the loneliness of people living alone. Understanding the role that businesses play in local communities is therefore an essential component to properly understanding how to promote social cohesion. This observation is not limited to villages. As villages grow into towns, and towns grow into cities, the important link between economic change and social cohesion becomes even more paramount.
We can tell a lot about the economic fortunes of an area from its architecture. I was in Liverpool in September for the Labour Party conference—and, yes, my attendance did raise a few eyebrows. I used the opportunity to revisit both the city’s cathedrals, and it struck me that both buildings very much track the prosperity of that great city through the 20th century.
Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral represents a desire by Victorian and Edwardian grandees to build the largest cathedral in the country, with the largest pipe organ to boot, whereas Liverpool’s Catholic cathedral had similar ambitions—to be the second-largest church in the world, with the largest dome—but had to be scaled back to a more modest, modern structure when Britain’s financial difficulties after the war became very apparent. You can see similar juxtapositions across towns and cities in the north of England: impressive Victorian town halls standing alongside more modest buildings as areas became less affluent. What application does this story of transition have for building strong community life?
First, let us examine a more recent economic transition. In the 1980s, the Government of the late noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, moved away from the previous model for funding Britain’s coal industry, where high state subsidies kept the sector afloat. Privatisation had many merits, but the process had a devastating impact on the communities involved, and the way the transition was handled has been a source of regret for the architects of those changes. For example, in 2009 the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, wrote the following, which is worth quoting at length:
“Those mining communities had good working-class values and a sense of family values … Many of these communities were completely devastated … The scale of the closures went too far. The damage done to those communities was enormous”.
In this one example we can see how rapid economic change, while potentially necessary on a macro level, can have dramatic negative impacts on a local level. The key is to properly manage the transition. For this specific sector, I draw your Lordships’ attention to the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, which has done tremendous work supporting the towns and villages affected by the pit closures.
I now turn to the present day. Our society is facing two profound economic changes. The first—much discussed in this House, including in my noble friend Lord Sharma’s passionate maiden speech—is the transition to a net-zero economy. The second, very much underdiscussed, is advances in automation and AI.
At this year’s TUC Congress in Brighton—one I did not attend, sadly—it was notable that both the GMB and Unite unions raised strong concerns about the net-zero transition on the grounds that there are not as yet equally skilled and equivalently paid jobs for workers in the oil and gas sector to transition to. They described the Government’s proposals for North Sea production and the extending of the energy profits levy as “premature and irresponsible”, and their position was summarised in the pithy slogan, “No ban without a plan”. Rather than merely considering the net-zero transition on a national level, we therefore need to have a much more honest conversation about the impact of this transition on individuals, families and communities on a local level.
This transition will affect not only Scotland. We are already seeing the effect in Wales, where Port Talbot saw the loss of 2,800 jobs this year, and in communities right across the country, often in areas that are already poorer than average. We therefore need to factor in these societal consequences when we discuss the net-zero transition.
We also need to consider the effect that automation and AI will have on the economy and our society. At the UK’s AI Safety Summit in 2023, Elon Musk predicted:
“There will come a point where no job is needed. You can have a job if you want to … for personal satisfaction, but the AI will be able to do everything”.
A recent report from the Institute for Public Policy Research suggested that without adequate management, the AI transition could result in 8 million job losses and no benefit to GDP. Its best-case scenario, though, was no job losses and a 13% boost to GDP.
I am confident that we can ensure the best-case scenario occurs, but the transition will require careful thought and proper planning—otherwise, the impact on community life will indeed be grim. More broadly, we need to do more to properly acknowledge the positive role that the business community plays in creating prosperity and engendering social cohesion. After all, economic transition is one of the biggest changes facing the country.
Strong, supportive communities are immensely important to us all, but unless we properly acknowledge the crucial role of the business community in our society, we will be ignoring the essential glue that binds us together—the businesses that pay our wages, pay tax to fund our public services and train people and offer them a ladder of opportunity. That is why we must always remember that successful societies require successful businesses.
The Lord Bishop of Bristol
My Lords, I too am grateful to the most reverend Primate for securing this debate and setting its tone. I am also very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sharma, for his impressive speech, and look forward to many more contributions from him in this Chamber. I am glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, and realise that there is more that unites us than divides us. Indeed, there are overlaps with many of the contributions from the Benches opposite in what I am about to say, because I want to speak of a particular place and of particular people.
I begin with Liverpool, as the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, mentioned. It was David Sheppard who, as Bishop of Liverpool, ordained me deaconess in Liverpool Cathedral and helped me to understand the stresses that port cities experience as global trade and human migration patterns shift. Port cities absorb, endure or thrive on the consequent change. Bishop David and his Archbishop and Free Church colleagues were well aware that social unrest was a symptom of the impact of felt injustice and a stimulus to work to create justice and peace. “Better together” was their theme and their motto in a city divided on economic, racial and religious grounds.
By contrast, my adopted city of Bristol has a long-established tradition of riot. In 1831, as the city expanded and industrialised, there were violent protests focused on a local magistrate and the Bishop of Bristol; both men were opposed to the Great Reform Bill. The jails and the bishop’s palace were destroyed. The cathedral was set on fire. In 1980 and 1986, after years of tensions, violent unrest erupted between the police and those who had arrived after the Second World War at our invitation from the Caribbean and who were the descendants of those enslaved and traded from Africa by Bristol-registered ships. A sense of profound injustice continued to counter the peace and prosperity of the city, which remained fragile.
However, at the same time in the 1980s it was John Savage, a business leader and entrepreneur, formed by Anglicanism’s bridge-building tradition, who led the Bristol initiative to build common ground between the estranged tribes of the city council, the Society of Merchant Venturers and the entrepreneurs and industrialists of the city. John, now a lay canon of the cathedral, understood that, as with so many other places, as the psalmist puts it, a vision is essential if the people are not to get out of hand.
John’s articulated intention was to create a city which by 2050 would be a just, sustainable, healthy and hopeful environment in which all of us could live. There are, flowing from his Bristol initiative, programmes and plans to implement that vision in conversation with the city council. That is the underpinning of Bristol’s one-city commitment, drawing together public, private, voluntary, creative and community organisations. The one-city partners meet fortnightly. They include vice-chancellors, hospital and social care leaders, the community leaders of our many communities and the whole of the not-for-profit sector.
We meet quarterly in a major gathering, sense the stresses which are emerging and look to causes and collaborative responses. Currently, our focus is on reducing knife crime and school absenteeism. The one-city approach was fundamental to our Covid response and to enabling honest debate after Colston’s statue was felled. We are seeking now to forge a new narrative which reflects the experience of all Bristolians. The one-city approach has sustained a culture which nurtures bridging and bonding links and relationships, builds trust and allows for change. My diocese, the parishes and the cathedral play their part. Last year, following prayers as the Ramadan fast ended in an adjacent building, the cathedral welcomed its Muslim neighbours for their grand iftar in the nave itself. St Mary Redcliffe, for a while the preserve of Bristol elites, has re-embedded itself in its local and often marginalised community, particularly welcoming refugees. Easton Christian family centre and Anglican church school and community hub has become, in the name of Christ, a place of prayer and service for all people in a parish that is almost entirely Muslim.
All this has buttressed the bonds of peace, so that when tensions arise around migration, faith and race do not overspill and fall apart. The Church stood in solidarity with other communities to protect the asylum seekers in the hotel in Redcliffe during the riot—the one riot—that we had. Police and demonstrators then communicated to prevent further unrest. The one-city commitment survived and was stress-tested. However, it remains fragile, dependent on healthy state, business and voluntary enterprises. The stresses are now considerable. St Mary Redcliffe and the cathedral need major works to improve accessibility and reduce their carbon impact. They await news from government about the renewal of the listed places of worship grant scheme. Without that 20% grant, projects costed at hundreds of thousands of pounds are now at risk. More seriously, it is the sense of the reduction of the impact on our outreach and our bonding and bridging capital which is crucial. Similarly, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, the national insurance increases have had a huge impact.
So I look for some reassurance that the Government will respond to the enterprising work that is being done in cities such as Bristol to build the bonds of peace and to renew the justice in our divided city.
Baroness Porter of Fulwood (Con)
My Lords, there is now clear evidence that social cohesion is important for a plethora of outcomes, from life expectancy and health to fostering a sense of belonging and improving people’s well-being and mental health. This is a timely debate. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York is right to note the current context of underlying fragility that people feel in the wider world around them. Others in this debate, including my noble friend Lord Sharma in his excellent maiden speech, have referenced the importance of this global context.
I will make three points. First, what is clear is that this is an area where a lack of consistent measurement and data is holding back progress. We know something about the various components that feed in here; many have been spoken about already. For example, income levels, employment rates and access to quality schools are all important. Similarly, we are all very familiar with some of the challenges that the digital innovations of recent years have brought about, altering significantly the dynamics of how people interact in both positive and negative ways.
The think tank Onward has done excellent work in this area, looking in detail at social trust specifically. What is striking from its research is just how inadequate talking about this is when focusing primarily on a national pattern. Adjacent neighbourhoods can have incredibly contrasting levels of trust; for example, Sheffield, which was scored in the research as the most unequal local authority in England, had net trust scores ranging from 29% to minus 31%. More needs to be done to draw all these different threads and variables of research together in a comprehensive way. I urge the Minister to consider what more the Government can do to measure and track, on an ongoing basis, social cohesion and the strength of community life in the UK.
Secondly, from what data is available, there are some clear implications for policy, and we should take note of them. We should do more to look at how social connection can be fostered as a test of policy. This is as important as addressing downstream impacts such as loneliness. As Onward’s work has shown, this means looking at policy that drives strong local relationships, as well as positive social norms, reducing levels of crime and increasing democratic participation. It means that we also need a significant hyperlocal strand to policy interventions around trust. Linked to that, we should consider the role that the charitable sector plays in creating strong, supportive communities and do more to ensure that it can thrive. The potential impact of the Budget announcement about national insurance contributions has been raised many times in this House, including today, and is a serious concern. The Government need to make scaling capacity in the charitable sector a priority.
A long-standing issue in the sector that many, including the Centre for Social Justice, have called out is around addressing contracting decisions for the provision of social services. It is still the case that small and medium-sized charities can struggle to compete with larger organisations, and that a greater focus on things such as multiyear certainty would help. There is more that local and national government can do to ensure that small and medium-sized charities are given a greater proportion of the funding than currently. A review of capacity building in the sector should also look at leveraging more private philanthropy and consider match funding, as well as the role of clusters, centres for excellence and incubators.
Thirdly and finally, given its importance, this is an area that does not get the attention it should in our national discourse. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton for his focus on the big society and the work he did in attempting to get people talking about strong community and why it matters. This is not just a matter of policy; it requires a cultural rethinking of what we value as a country. We need to talk about the importance of social connection, understand it and value it.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, in the wake of the summer riots, the Prime Minister said:
“This is a problem that has deep roots in our society, and it’s a job for all of our society to help fix it”.
That was in the summer of 2011, and the Prime Minister in question was the one to whom the noble Baroness, Lady Porter of Fulwood, just referred: the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, who, at that stage, was talking about the broken society and the need to fix it. If it was broken then, my goodness, it is broken now.
In the meantime, we have had commissions and reports. The Library briefing gave us an indication of just how many bits of paper have been produced on the issue of social cohesion. Last year, the Church of England produced its report, Love Matters—of course it does; I have no doubt that Richard Curtis will make a film about it at some stage. The point is that society is still broken. From the relative comfort of these Benches, we are producing many more thoughts and ideas about what the problems are, but what we really need to start getting to grips with is what needs to be done.
We know the root of much of the problem. As the most reverend Primate indicated in introducing the debate, this year’s riots were concentrated largely in areas of sustained deprivation. Years of talk of levelling up have done absolutely nothing to improve their situation—indeed, in many cases, it has simply got worse. There are different problems, and various aspects of them have been spoken of today. It is not all to do with finance, although there is no doubt that more money for local authorities would make a difference. Properly used, it could lift living standards and bolster communities. But, rather than dwelling more on the problems, I will try to limit my remarks to a couple of groups of people where there are particular issues and I have small thoughts as to how we might begin to improve things.
The first group I will concentrate on are white working-class boys. They feel deeply underprivileged, and in many cases unloved. They do not know where they are going and they are fearful. How do they respond? Many of them look for leadership. Unfortunately, the leader many of them seem to have found is Andrew Tate. I do not want to dwell too much on Andrew Tate, but that appalling perpetrator of misogyny, and many other things besides, has a huge following, and many of them are young British men and boys. He is clearly not doing them any good, but nobody appears to have been able to take his place—and unfortunately, Nigel Farage says that Mr Tate is somebody we should all listen to.
If your Lordships do not think this is an important problem now, politicians soon will. A poll earlier this year showed that among 16 to 17 year-old boys, if they were given a vote—which of course they will soon have—35% of them would vote for Reform, and 35% of them would vote for Labour. Very few of them would vote for the Conservatives, but of course that may change. As it happens, the young ladies were rather more sensible: only 12% of them would vote for Reform. That 35% figure should frighten us. It is not Nigel Farage they particularly warm to; they warm to something different from what is being offered normally—to what has been the traditional politics of this country. They want change.
When there was a riot outside a hotel for asylum seekers in Manchester, a boy who was taken to court, a 12 year-old, had to wait while the judge summoned back his mother, who had gone on holiday to Ibiza the day before the boy was due in court. In one microcosm your Lordships have an example of this boy’s problems. He was a child of a single parent who thought it appropriate to go on holiday the day before he was due to be sentenced in court. No wonder he was described by the judge as showing
“the worst type of feral behaviour”
because what had he been shown? He knew little better.
What people such as that need is of course the six-month parenting course his mother was going to get, although I do not think that will change things. I suggest that sport may have the ability to do that, so I would like to see the Government doing more to get these disaffected youngsters into sport, which can be a force for good, showing them how to engage in teams and become a useful part of society.
The other group I would like to talk about is elderly people. Much has been said already about loneliness, but 2 million people aged over 75 live alone. More than a million of those, according to Age UK, go over a month without speaking to a friend, neighbour or family member. It does not need to be like this. These are people who could be a useful resource. We saw examples after Covid of “granny friends”: elderly women and men being paired up with little children to try to get them to be sociable and to learn what they need to know—and they need to know quite a lot. One of the Government’s latest milestones is that 75% of five year-olds should be school-ready when they are going to school. The fact that 75% is the target tells you all you need to know. These children need help, and we have an army of elderly people sitting at home alone who could provide that help. Again, I ask the Minister whether he has a plan to mobilise the capacity that is there to help these children, to build families and to help rebuild our communities.
Lord Sandhurst (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the most reverend Primate for initiating this debate. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Sharma. He has delivered an important maiden speech. I look forward to hearing much more from him. Indeed, we have heard many fine speeches today.
My theme is the misuse of the term “community”. It can be the enemy of social cohesion. Let me explain. Smaller and close-knit communities can be exclusive of others. Overstrong religious and cultural beliefs too often lead to bigotry and dangerous intolerance. If we are to be serious about wider cohesion and the people of this country living in harmony, we must face up to the misuse of the word “community” as code by some who seek special treatment to the exclusion of others.
It is not surprising that immigrants of whatever race, colour or belief find initial integration not easy. The Jews who came here in the second half of the 19th century faced discrimination and hostility, so this is not a new problem, and nor is it unique to these islands. But if we look at the last 175 years, we see what those Jews have contributed. Here I echo my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley.
Of course immigrants look for support on arrival, and they find it, naturally, among others of similar background who are already established here. In this way, communities of such immigrants grow in size. Since the last war, Britain has had immigration on a large scale: incomers with very different religious and cultural beliefs from around the world. They have tended, for understandable reasons, to stick together at first, but those with education, confidence and encouragement have blossomed and engaged with wider society and moved outwards. They have become British, in the true sense. People come here to live because they believe that the British way of life has something of value for them.
Strong belief in a particular religion or culture is, by definition, exclusive. If we are not careful, this can be an aggravating factor. It is the enemy of toleration. Informed observers have made the point that religious beliefs and customs have heightened differences in our big cities. People of one kind group together for support, and then one community feels threatened by another which has grown or is perceived to have intruded. Each community looks inward and becomes defensive, intolerant and possibly aggressive. This is not the social cohesion, or the strong community of people, that we want in this country.
Moreover, to stick to one’s own group or community is, economically, a form of social protectionism. Ultimately, it limits not just personal growth but economic growth for those who adopt this approach.
Where do we go from here? We have to broaden outlooks. We have to stop favouring so-called communities, in the wrong sense, when we mean, at worst, informal ghettos. We have to encourage the people of this country to think of themselves as British first. Our political leaders must not pander to interest groups based on such criteria as race and religion. We are all subject to the same laws; we are all equal before the law. Let us hear no more pleas for the interests of particular communities where this is simply shorthand for “me first” or “our group first”. We are the citizens of one nation, with the same rights and obligations.
In this respect, like my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough, I commend a recent paper by Policy Exchange, A Portrait of Modern Britain: Ethnicity and Religion. Given the short time available, I plucked just two of many good points. The first is that:
“The children of Britain should be taught to be proud of their national heritage in an inclusive manner that reflects Britain’s history and traditions”.
The second point is that government and public bodies should address equality and social mobility primarily
“through a class and poverty lens, not a racial one”.
Political leaders must not look for votes on the basis of ethnic or religious interests.
I will give two examples of the dangers that we face if we do not do something. First, in the summer of 2022, Leicester saw a period of religious and ethnic tension, predominantly between British Hindus and British Muslims of South Asian origin. The causes were multifactorial. Religious beliefs and customs are said by informed observers to have heightened differences. Each community felt threatened by the other. Secondly, as we have heard from others, at the end of July and in early August of this year, far-right, anti-immigration protests and riots occurred in England, within the United Kingdom. This followed the mass stabbing in Southport on 29 July, and those riots were fuelled by false claims circulated by far-right groups that the perpetrator of the attack was a Muslim and an asylum seeker. That added to broader Islamophobic, racist and anti-immigrant sentiments that had grown up leading to the protests. We have to put a stop to those beliefs of false anti-immigrant sentiments.
At the heart of this lies the wrong sort of separateness: people sticking together for understandable reasons but leading to long-term disharmony and danger for us all. Let all of us who are in positions of influence, especially the media, stop this talk of the “such and such” community. The term “community” has become dangerous code for “my group” to the exclusion of others—it can encourage sectarian divide. To cohere, we must all be British and nothing else. We must learn to love our neighbours; to be exemplars of tolerance and to welcome outsiders and strangers—as I always read “xenia”—or foreigners. In turn, those outsiders who come to live in this country must learn what it means to be British and embrace what is best: tolerance and respect for the rule of law. Then we shall all be proper members of our communities in their true and best sense.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, I apologise for my voice, which I lost last week when I had a cold. I am now recovering, but I sound like a diseased animal, and I apologise for that. As I am going to touch on housing, I declare my interest as listed in the Register of Members’ Interests: I chair a small property company that owns agricultural land and rented properties.
I congratulate the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York on a powerful and compelling speech. It is also a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, who I got to know when he was chairman of the Bar Council; he always imparts great wisdom. Incidentally, I was also pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, mentioned the late Baroness Kinnock, who was a remarkable Member of this House. I was privileged enough to be her successor as Minister for Africa in the Foreign Office, in the coalition Government in 2010, and it was an incredibly difficult task to follow someone of her stature.
It is very sad, in many ways, that the other most reverend Primate is not here today. He made an incredibly moving speech yesterday. This was going to be his debate and, on this side of the House, anyway, having spoken to my colleagues here, I can say that the vast majority of us regarded him as a truly remarkable leader of the Church, a true Christian and someone of great principles and stature who was a commanding presence in this House. I can understand why, after the Makin report, he decided that he had to take personal responsibility for the institutional failings of the Church of England, and I am very glad that the most reverend Primate and, indeed, the right reverend Prelate, mentioned the failings of the Church. They were grave failings, although I have to say that, since the Makin report, police officers have come forward to say that there was nothing that the most reverend Primate himself could have done, after he was installed, to make more information available. It is very sad that he was not able to go on his own terms and to maybe have a farewell tour around the diocese and abroad. Many of us on this side of the House—I speak for a number of colleagues—feel that it is sad that the House of Bishops did not show great unity and that there was a breaking of the ranks in this. That was not a particularly compassionate or Christian thing to do to someone who has made a truly remarkable contribution to the Church and to this nation.
I would like to concentrate on housing. As a number of noble Lords have pointed out, including the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, social cohesion depends on families being content, having good housing and building neighbourliness. Of course, climate change is important as well, and I congratulate my former colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Sharma, on what was a really important speech. It brought home to this House the exceptional knowledge he has of climate change and the truly remarkable contribution he has made. If I may say so, many Ministers have come and gone in different departments, but very few have made the impact and contribution that he made to the climate change talks. The work he is doing is ongoing, and we are very fortunate to have him among our number in this House.
Just as good housing can lead to good neighbourliness, secure families and social cohesion, bad housing can lead to all sorts of other issues and problems, such as bad physical and mental health, and offender recidivism. Shelter recently published a report pointing out that some 30% of people leaving prison had previously been homeless, and that approximately 40% of them will go on to reoffend. Getting housing right is incredibly important.
I want to touch on three main areas that I think are in crisis. I do not have all the answers, but I want to suggest some solutions and to talk about what the Church itself could do. I have been close to the Church of England both in my former constituency and where I live now, and if one looks at the three sectors of housing, they are all facing different crises.
First, let us look at private sector housing. There is bound to be an immediate observation that there is this feeling of intergenerational unfairness. After all, in the last 20 years, the cost of houses has gone up on average by 200%. Wages in the period from 1996 to 2022 have gone up by 24%, so many young people who aspire to own a home are now finding it incredibly difficult, given that you have to find a deposit of £70,000, on average, in the south-east. So of course, we need new homes.
I want to pick up on a point made in other debates: that somehow there is a crisis, in that there are fewer planners than ever before and not enough planning decisions being taken. The problem is not that; it is that land that has permission is not being built out. That is nearly 1 million units not being built, which is a serious problem that needs addressing.
On private rented housing, which has now overtaken social rented housing, it is incredibly important that we encourage the best landlords. The worst landlords are dreadful, but the best set the highest possible standards. However, when we try to bring up the worst, we must not bring down the best, and that is why I would use incentives. For example, I would look at a landlord’s charter and at making sure there are more regular inspections. Maybe fewer diversity officers among councils and more environmental health officers would help with those inspections.
On social rented housing, I am not in favour of getting rid of the right to buy, which has helped social cohesion. Why can we not have a “one out, one in” system and use those funds to build more housing association houses? That is exactly what some of the best housing associations in East Anglia are doing.
I think I am right in saying—if not, the most reverend Primate will correct me—that the Church of England and the Church Commissioners own 350,000 acres in the dioceses around the country. I will share some examples from Norfolk. In one village, a bit of glebe land of 10 acres sold recently, and the parish were keen to have four or five housing association houses built. In another village, a strip of land of about two acres, next to the church graveyard, was up for sale. Not too far away, a farm belonging to the diocese of about 200 acres was for sale.
Why can the Church of England not set up its own housing association? Let us look back at the great history of the alms houses. I had a look at the Archbishops’ report, Coming Home, which has many pleas for more help for the homeless and those in housing need, but no long-term vision. There is no long-term radical thinking about practical Church initiatives to help with housing. So, my one plea today to the Minister, the most reverend Primate and right reverend Prelates is this: can they look really urgently at setting up housing associations across the different dioceses, where they can use their land to make a real difference to housing in this country?
Lord Mann (Lab)
My Lords, I apologise for having spent most of the session in my office but, after yesterday’s Covid jab, I think it was better to collapse in the office rather than collapsing here. If I suddenly fall over, your Lordships will know it is of only minor seriousness.
I am listening; I have listened all the way through the debate. Lots of policies are being suggested as to how we can do things to people, but the overwhelming message that I get everywhere is that people are fed up with politicians doing things to them. They want to be left alone. They want to live their lives without hassle. The more I go into the Jewish community, the Muslim community, the huge swathes of basically unorganised middle-class and working-class communities that I have represented for 18 and a half years, that is the theme: “We don’t want hassle in our lives. If there’s hassle, sort it out; then, just let us get on with things”.
We are taking our eye off the ball. I declare my interest, having been appointed by the Prime Minister to advise on anti-Semitism. I do not get paid for it, and I am not Jewish. I get a lot of grief from it—an awful lot of grief. My wife and daughter have been threatened with rape online. People have been arrested, jailed or convicted in other ways. We got the full hat: from the left, from the right, from pro-Iranian forces—the whole lot. We have Iran on our backs at the moment. We are having to deal with people. It is a bit of a pain.
So why do it? Perhaps it is because I have been well brought up, I might suggest, rather immodestly. Also, being outside the community has a certain advantage. The difference is fundamental, and it is very important that noble Lords understand it. When I go home, I am not Jewish. When I go to sleep and in the middle of the night, I am not Jewish. Therefore, it does not get to my soul in terms of who I am, my identity or my future in this country. Yes, it is lots of grief I could do without, but what I see, hear and, I think, understand is exactly how people in the Jewish community, and the Muslim community, feel—atomised, isolated, hassled and disempowered. They feel that we are not doing enough about it because what they really want is just to get on with their lives.
As part of that process, I invite the Minister to come to Eaton Hall, which does imam training. It has not engaged with the Government for 20 years. It has 115 mosques and I think 55 imams in training. He and his boss would be very welcome. I think it would be very useful.
I fear that we might go for the easy routes. I am all for bishops, vicars, rabbis and imams holding hands and having meetings, but in the real world, from what I hear in the Muslim and Jewish communities, that is not going to be happening in the next 12 months. We have got to rebuild that, and it will not be short term. We have to be honest and realistic about where we are. When there is conflict going on, when people are angry and taking sides and when they can see grievances in front of them, the more we can bring people together, the better, but we will also need to run parallel strategies of engaging separately in order to be successful in the next 12 months. I suggest that the political environment might be somewhat more difficult than before, not easier. That is fundamental to what the Government should be thinking about.
I hesitate to give any advice to the Bishops, but I could channel my inner Michael Caine and say just read the Book. Matthew says quite a lot. Matthew 19, verse 24 is early on in the New Testament, so it must be important. It is not hidden away. It says,
“it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God”.
Bishops in the Church of England are making the same mistake we are making. It is right to deal with the misuse of power and to shuffle the pack. People come and people go because of that. I dealt with huge numbers of survivors of sexual abuse in some torrid meetings, and I still represent some who have not seen justice. But the bishops and we need to think about how we are misconstruing power, and that is a bigger problem. We are not seeing how it works. We are happy to be in the meeting room, here or in the tearoom, in our comfort zone. I would quite like—in fact, I am asking for—access to Lambeth Palace and for it to join me in an event on anti-Semitism. If I get the traditional hobnobs and tea from the Church of England, I will be well in my comfort zone, so I am not eschewing that.
However, we do too much in the comfort zone and not enough dealing with people we do not understand—of thinking about and going to places that we are not comfortable in. If there is any point to the House of Lords, we need to get our act together, because we do not have electoral pressures. If people are saying that the best model is not to have some replica Chamber, that is fundamental because I do not think we are doing our job nearly well enough. The bishops are a microcosm and no worse than anyone else but, comparably, how much time do they spend in here and how much dealing with declining numbers of pupils, declining buildings or the problems of connecting with communities?
Out there, we have an avalanche of children not attending school. I am a trustee of an academy chain. Parents used to say: “School is rather good; it’s free childcare. Get the kid out; I want them out; it will be good for them. I want them away and out of the house”. They are now saying exactly the opposite. They say: “School is no good; I didn’t like it. I want them in the house. There’s no need to go; they’re happier in the house and they have hassle at school”. That is a fundamental crisis in our society and I do not think the Government have put it as a top priority. This should be a significant cross-party priority.
What kind of society are we trying to build? I am looking at it and thinking that I do not have the freedom to do the things I would like to do with my grandchildren. You cannot, as I did, go through meadows or fields. You struggle to find trees. It is congested and overpopulated in the mountains. We are taking away what people use. I do not call it escapism; I call it real life—the bits that take the hassle out of people’s lives. We in this House need to spend an awful lot of time thinking through how we can influence that. It strikes me that that is not a role that could ever come, however good it is, from the other place. That is something we should be good at with our combined expertise.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, as well as the local social cohesion that many noble Lords have mentioned, we need national cohesion. We need events that bring us all together, such as hosting an Olympics, a royal wedding or a Coronation. Some of the best of these events are hosted for us by the established Church.
I take note of the apology from the most reverend Primate. I am mindful of not throwing stones—I was a government Minister in the Department for Education during the pandemic—but I believe that there are more actions, some of which I will outline, that need to be taken at speed, as well as words that are needed for the victims. One has only to glance at social media to know that the actions of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London in her demeanour yesterday in your Lordships’ House spoke more than words to many of the victims.
I am aware that, for many, the state of the high establishment is irrelevant. Many people cannot name the archbishops and the historic resignation has passed them by. But for victims and these national moments of cohesion, the integrity of this institution matters. I note just one connection to a victims’ network related to another review by the Church of England on Soul Survivor. I also covered safeguarding while in the department and I am on the PCC of my local church.
I am also aware that, under the Standing Orders, I must not ask questions of the Church of England, only questions about matters for which His Majesty’s Government are responsible. Could the Minister outline for victims of abuse within the Church of England, in the absence of an independent structure, to whom they should send their concerns? I have signposted various internal Church of England reviews, internal staff and maybe even MPs. I am also now aware of Safe Spaces.
If I was contacted about a school, I would send them to Ofsted. If it was about medical treatment, I would send them to the CQC. If it was about a mosque, of course, the Charity Commission would be seized of this matter. Even here in Parliament, there is an independent safeguarding board. There is still no trusted independent avenue of redress for victims to go to, and that has been the case for too long. I guess the synod and legal processes of the Church of England make our Erskine May look like a “Dummies guide to legislating”, but no one is above swift best practice when it comes to having robust safeguarding processes.
I ask the Minister: is it the Charity Commission, the Minister’s own office or the Victims’ Commissioner to whom these people should go currently? Can the Minister look at ensuring that the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse recommendation to put in place such an independent structure, which was given to the Church of England about four years ago, could have such a timetable?
The failure to achieve that in a timely manner is only one example given to the Select Committee on Statutory Inquiries of your Lordships’ House, on which I served, where victims come forward at great personal cost to a public inquiry but recommendations are not enacted. I am mindful that the Government are usually the biggest culprit in that, but the good offices of the Government could be used to deflect the temptation of the long grass for the Church of England when the scrutiny of the media may have moved on to other matters.
Safeguarding issues are also making some people nervous about getting involved with young people. Volunteers and employees doing such work are one of the building blocks of local social cohesion. We need a better way forward. Reviews of the Church of England such as those of Makin and Scolding are being queried, with no one really knowing what a proper independent review is. What are the standards for an independent safeguarding review? We call it that, but are we clear what independence is? How many chairs of IICSA were there before Alexis Jay was settled on? Can the Minister please consider whether, akin to the Nolan principles, there should be standards or principles of what an independent review is and who can be an independent chair? They could be used by many institutions.
A proper inquiry or review heals wounds and brings cohesion if it engages victims properly. It was humbling to learn on the Select Committee that Bishop James Jones, the retired Bishop of Liverpool, chaired the Hillsborough review on a non-statutory basis, meaning that there was no power to compel witnesses or documents and victims did not even request lawyers, such was their trust in the panel—so it is possible. But when it comes to statutory reviews, His Majesty’s Government, and in these circumstances the Church of England, have to give away some of their power and control and allow the victims to be consulted in creating terms of reference by an independent chair, at the very least.
While I appreciate that there have been laudable attempts by the Church of England to engage survivors, the lack of independence has hampered that process. Introducing standards for a safeguarding review should ensure justice for victims but also for those whose careers are affected by outcomes. Much uncertainty for parish clergy has been created by suspensions and a resignation following the Makin review.
While I thank God for our free media, without which there would have been precious little redress, being able to garner media pressure should not be the sole criterion for sanction. While they might not command the same sympathy as the P&O ferry employees, clergy are in fact not employees and are outside virtually all the normal protections of employment legislation.
There are other institutions struggling with redress processes and culture—the CBI, Yorkshire County Cricket Club and the BBC, to name but a few—but those that are able to swiftly implode, clear out some of the staff and the board and reset the culture, such as Yorkshire County Cricket Club, seem to be able to resurrect themselves. The BBC and the Church of England, with their unique governing structures, seem to be vulnerable to grinding victims and staff through multiple spin dryer-like internal processes.
The nation needs—that is a lofty claim, I know, but I believe it is the nation—a swift, independent, probably judge-led redress for these victims and any other historical cases or reviews to be dealt with before a new Archbishop of Canterbury takes office or there is a royal occasion to host. We also need to know whether the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, who called publicly for the most reverend Primate’s resignation and for a root-and-branch clear-out, is the Church of England’s equivalent of Alan Bates to the Post Office.
It is the victims who need this the most. They are crying out for redress on social media. This was a torrid case of abuse. Particularly at this time, to think that men were beaten until they bled is devastating to us as Christians. The most reverend Primate is right: this is putting a strain on our trust. I could not help thinking, as I prepared this speech, of victims in South Africa abused in the last years of John Smyth’s life who would not have so suffered had the police and Church authorities in the UK told their South African counterparts earlier and more effectively—victims who then watched the established Church host and the Archbishop crown our King. How can this not be a matter for His Majesty’s Government?
The Lord Bishop of Lichfield
My Lords, I am sure that on these Benches and more widely, all of us as Bishops will register and take to heart the searching and challenging words of the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, and I thank her for them. We recognise the urgency and centrality of independent scrutiny in the life of our Church.
The UK is home to communities that are richly diverse and in which people of different cultures, beliefs and faiths live alongside one another. Social cohesion acts as the bridge between those differences. It enables us to live well together, providing resilience to communities when faced with adversity and enabling us to coexist peacefully, but as demonstrated by the riots this summer, this kind of social cohesion can no longer be taken for granted. The consequences of growing divisions should not be underestimated, and we must not ignore the increasing threat of erosion that the social cohesion binding us together faces.
In recent years we have seen the impact of global events being played out in our neighbourhoods, and those effects have often been particularly felt by faith communities. Following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on 7 October last year, there was a major spike in anti-Semitic hate crime in the UK, and the levels of anti-Semitism recorded in 2024 remain horrifically high. Members of the Jewish community have expressed feelings of anxiety and fear, and a survey of British Jews carried out by Survation last month reveals that 77% of respondents feel less safe living in the UK since the attacks. The noble Lord, Lord Leigh, spoke powerfully and wisely about this.
There have simultaneously been increasing threats to social cohesion within many of the communities where Muslims live. During the riots in the summer, we witnessed mosques, Islamic community centres, hotels and refugee advice centres being targeted and threatened. A climate of fear was created through the spread of misinformation online regarding the perpetrators of violence being motivated by Islam. While national and international events can act as triggers for social unrest, I believe that these incidents are not isolated events but reflect insidious tensions that had been building long before the events themselves took place. It is therefore necessary that our approach to building social cohesion should be preventive and long term.
One particularly valuable tool in building cohesion that I have witnessed and participated in over the years is interfaith work. In 2013 I was serving as Bishop of Woolwich when Fusilier Lee Rigby was brutally and very publicly murdered in the street in Woolwich. Widespread rioting and unrest were predicted at that time but did not materialise. I think that at least one reason for that was the long and strong history of interfaith work in Woolwich, which had woven a texture of local community that was too tight-knit for any butcher’s knife to tear apart. Interfaith work and dialogue can dissolve barriers of mistrust, ignorance and fear and in their place build unity and cohesion, fostered through relationships founded on shared understanding and common ground.
I highlight in particular the work of the Near Neighbours organisation, which clearly takes its name from our Lord’s parable of the good Samaritan and which I think embodies the principles of philadelphia and philoxenia that the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, reminded us of.
Near Neighbours started life by using the network of local contacts that parish churches have across the country. It works to bring people together in communities that are religiously and ethnically diverse, so that they can get to know each other better, build relationships of trust and collaborate to improve their local communities. They work through several local hubs across the country, involving local leaders and distributing small grants to local initiatives. That localism is important because it is those who are rooted in local communities who understand best the challenges and needs of their communities.
A recent report published by Theos, which was mentioned earlier by the most reverend Primate, echoes this, and affirms how local churches and faith communities bring key strengths and assets to cohesion work that are often difficult to replicate in other organisations and structures. Can the Minister say what steps those responsible for cohesion policy are taking to consult and listen to faith communities when developing a social cohesion strategy? In light of what many of us considered to be the lamented demise of the Inter Faith Network for the UK, how are the Government planning to build connections with, and support, grass-roots and local faith communities?
Education is vital. In Leicester, a city that I know well—one that, as has been mentioned, has wrestled with its own challenges of cohesion—the St Phillip’s Centre provides training for new police recruits, as well as workshops for schools to educate pupils on different faiths and the importance of respect. What steps are the Government planning to take to support educational initiatives that promote faith literacy?
Recent events have displayed the dangers of fractured communities. My hope, going forward, is that the value that faith communities provide in nurturing social cohesion will be recognised and utilised, and that, ultimately, we strengthen and build communities in which we not only coexist alongside one another but all belong to one another.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow a fellow Orielensis, although I am afraid I have a few years on the right reverend Prelate—several, actually.
I would like to speak directly to the leaders of the Church. As a member of the Church, about which I care deeply and that is why I am speaking, I speak in some despair and in sorrow rather than anger—but with a little bit of anger as well. I join my noble friend Lord Bellingham in regretting the manner in which the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury was, frankly, driven out of his post in a sort of witch hunt. Who, even 40 years ago, seeing John Smyth taking young adults to a shed at the bottom of his garden and flogging them, did not know that that was, at the very least, weird and creepy? It was not the most reverend Primate who was to blame; it was a huge number of other people who did not take action.
I saw that the most reverend Primate’s speech was criticised for some levity. I read the speech—I was not here, unfortunately—and I thought he spoke very well. People must move on; he has taken responsibility for the whole Church, and the Church—and we—should be grateful for that.
I turn to the role of the Church in social cohesion, which I would have thought was pretty central and fundamental to the role of the established Church of England. I am speaking here of the Bishops’ Bench, which I note is no longer the Tory party at prayer. I fear that the hierarchy has lost touch with the Church as a whole. It has lost touch with a lot of parish priests, and it has lost touch with people in the pews. I am one of those people in the pews. I can speak only for myself, but I know that a lot of people agree with me.
As I sit in church on a Sunday, I see a Church that is dying on its feet. It is becoming more and more irrelevant. Congregations are dwindling, as we all know, yet, frankly, the Church is to a certain extent fiddling while it burns. Let me quote, if I may, from the most reverend Primate in last year’s debate, when he said:
“You could get rid of the House of Bishops tomorrow and it would be years before anyone noticed the difference, but if you get rid of parish priests, the whole thing would collapse overnight”.—[Official Report, 8/12/23; col. 1704.]
Let me illustrate this with the diocese of Leicester, where I live. A hundred years ago, there was no see of Leicester; every parish had a priest. Now, we have two bishops in Leicester—I am not criticising either of them, by the way; I get on well with Martyn Snow—but we have no priests in the vicarages. Indeed, I live in a benefice of 11 parishes which has not had a resident priest for over five years. There is no local guidance or leadership except by volunteers, and that is not quite the same.
Let us talk about guidance at the highest level. In his speech, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York said that institutions play a “vital part” in cohesion. The parish church, which I believe he referred to as well, is an institution throughout this country of England. He also talked about Christian values. He referred to
“values that need to be taught and cherished”.
I could not agree more.
In the Covid pandemic, when society desperately needed leadership, the churches were closed. What was all that about? What about the education of children under the coronavirus restrictions? Perhaps many people did speak out, but I did not hear bishops saying, “This is outrageous. We are damaging the future of our children’s education for, frankly, nothing very much”.
In my diocese, parishes cannot get churchwardens, and one of the reasons is because of things such as faculties. Have noble Lords ever tried to get a faculty through a diocese? It is absurdly bureaucratic, and it seems that sometimes the Church is more interested in bureaucracy than in the mission it should be pursuing.
I rejoined the PCC after several years, and at the PCC meeting last week, the churchwarden—who is a woman who I would guess is in her late 30s, and who has two children—said, “Oh God, the resignation of the Archbishop will lead to yet more safeguarding training”. We all want to be safe but does safeguarding training work? Has anybody done a study as to whether it works? Of course it does not. We knew John Smyth was a wrong ‘un at the very beginning; we did not need safeguarding training for that.
The churchwarden also said, “The only children in the church are my two—why do I need to do safeguarding training?”, which is exactly what my wife said when she was churchwarden some 20 years ago. She had to do safeguarding training, yet our children were the only children in church. So please, do not weigh down volunteers, when there are no priests, with bureaucracy. Let us rely on good values, good judgment and good human nature until we are proved wrong.
Institutions and tradition, of which the most reverend Primate spoke, are part of the cohesion of society. At the 60th D-day anniversary in the cathedral, which was very good, those marvellous words of Spring Rice, “I Vow to Thee, My Country”, to the beautiful music of Holst, were replaced. We had—I am paraphrasing; I apologise—“Let’s all hold hands and dance around and be nice to each other”. I am sorry, but it was “I Vow to Thee, My Country”. I sung the old words, your Lordships will be surprised to hear. If I might say so to the most reverend Primate, we do not need more strategies. We need to return to the Christian mission of a Church based on Christian values. Let us look at the membership of the Church and stand up for it.
I will try to encapsulate what I want to say: let the Church of England look after its own, with parish priests, and not criticise all those, such as myself, who hold conservative views. I sat through the debates on Rwanda and so on, where I was told that, basically, I was being unchristian because I wanted to do what I think most of other countries in Europe are trying to do in offshoring illegal migrants. Let us realise that conservative values, funnily enough, are based in Christian tradition—I am not knocking socialists or left-wing values—so let the Church of England look after the people of England and its congregations and look for a spiritual renewal in society.
Before I close, I will give another illustration. While parishes are desperately trying to raise money through church fêtes—or whatever it might be—the Church is giving £100 million to right the wrongs of slavery. You cannot do that; it was over 200 years ago. To cite something that I wrote previously: I feel no guilt for the actions of past generations, nearly 200 years ago. As an historian, I know the history of slavery: the Arab and tribal raiding parties that delivered slaves to the coast of west Africa; the abolition of the slave trade in 1807; the work and sacrifice of the West Africa Squadron in the 19th century; the total abolition of slavery throughout the Empire in 1833; and the expeditions to prevent slavery in Ghana, Benin and elsewhere, which were costly in British lives as well as African ones. I recommend the book Bury the Chains by Adam Hochschild; he is not a Brit but an American, so he is not particularly pro-British.
Certainly, our ancestors did many wicked things that are totally unacceptable by today’s standards, both before and after 1807. But revisionist history used to be despised as the work of dictatorial regimes in the 1930s, not something associated with a democratic nation that favours free speech, debate and scholarship. I use this as an example of the confused priorities of the Church, of which I remain an active member, while it struggles to exist.
In fact, there is modern slavery. I went to Sudan 20 years ago, where apparently there has been slavery between raiding parties, although that may have ended. Certainly, there is forced labour—aka slavery—in Xinjiang province. I would like to hear more about that, rather than the past wrongs of 200 years ago. I say to the Church: please stand up for the people of England and the people of the Church of England.
Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)
My Lords, I too congratulate the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York on calling this important debate. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sharma, on his impressive and thoughtful maiden speech.
The poet reminds us that rivers and mountains interpose to make one people implacable foes. It is not only geography that divides what Sikhs call our one human family; it is also human prejudice and bigotry. Most of us like to believe that we have no prejudices, and that prejudice is confined to the ignorant few. Nothing could be further from the truth. Prejudice, or a fear of difference, is inherent in us all. We are all genetically programmed to be wary of difference. In less enlightened times, even left-handers like me were regarded with suspicion—the Latin word for left is “sinister”. The challenge before us is to recognise and discard irrational prejudice against fellow members of what Sikhs call our one human family.
Religion was meant to make us better human beings, but much of the conflict in the world today is between different religions or subsets of religions, each claiming superiority of belief and a unique access to the one God of us all. We all know what happens when two boys in the school playground each claim, “My dad is bigger or stronger or better than your dad”. The end result is fisticuffs—and it is the same with religion.
Guru Nanak, who lived in the 15th century, was a witness to such conflict. India had been invaded by Muslims from the north, bent on converting to the one true faith those whom they saw as inferior Hindus. Hindus regarded the invaders as uncivilised barbarians. In his very first sermon, Guru Nanak declared that, in God’s eyes, there is neither Hindu nor Muslim, and that God is not interested in our different religious labels, but in what we do for others. He went on to criticise the discrimination against women practised by both religions, emphasising their complete equality.
Throughout history, religions have created walls of supposed superiority of doctrine and favoured links to God, strengthened by negative attitudes to others. Some of the denigration of others has become embedded in religious scriptures, masking important commonalities between faiths. In the New Testament, for example, written decades after the passing of Jesus, it is claimed that Jesus said:
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”.
Well, that rules me out to start with.
The denigration of others does not square with the life and actual teachings of Jesus, who applauded the kindness, goodness and compassion of others, as in the parable of the good Samaritan. Equally, the following verse, attributed to Jesus, deflects us from his all-embracing teachings:
“For I say unto you that unless thy righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven”.
Jesus Christ repeatedly showed his respect for women, yet Saint Paul justifies misogyny. He says:
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent”.
I have given some examples from the Bible which portray a negative image of others, which can be used to justify extreme and negative behaviour towards others. Time does not allow me to quote from other religious texts, such as the Koran, also written years after the passing of the Prophet Muhammad, which are sometimes used to justify violent behaviour towards others.
While most people are decent and law abiding, a few can be persuaded to focus on negative attitudes to others embedded in religious texts and engage in acts of terrorism in the belief that they are advancing the one true faith and will be rewarded by God. Today, there is an urgent need for religious leaders to put negative and dated texts in their true historical context and deprive misguided extremists of justification and motivation. This is the only way to prevent extremism in society. Appointing commissions of inquiry and collecting hate statistics will not make an iota of difference. Different religions are, in essence, guidebooks for our journey through life—what to do, what to avoid—and imperatives for responsible living. It would be absurd to suggest that a particular guidebook for a tour of France is the only guidebook and that all others are false.
Many years ago, I helped to start the Inter Faith Network, which has just been mentioned, to promote dialogue and understanding. While it helped to promote a superficial respect for different faiths, the one thing we did not talk about were the actual teachings. We would meet, exchange pleasantries and common concerns, enjoy tea and samosas and then go away, each convinced that our beliefs and ethical values were superior. This came home to me when I heard an internet talk by a Muslim vice-chair of the Inter Faith Network. He was talking to a Muslim audience, saying that he felt sorry for people of other faiths, for they were all going to hell.
What normally passes for religion is an amalgam of culture, superstition and ethical teachings. Culture can be good or bad and it changes with time. Rituals and superstitions are, in essence, merely meaningless. I am sure that the one God, the creator of all that exists in the vastness of his universe, would not be motivated by the prejudice and favouritism attributed to him.
Respecting seeming diversity is generally seen as a way of community cohesion, but for real cohesion and mutual respect we need to look beyond superficial difference to underlying commonalities. Our different religions are overlapping circles of belief which have more in common than the seeming differences. At the time of the millennium, I was a member of the Lambeth group. Although we were from different religions, we had no trouble in formulating priorities: ethical values that would carry us to the 21st century. They ended up in a drawer in Lambeth Palace. Today, we need to dig them out as a blueprint for greater cohesion and understanding of what Sikhs refer to in our daily prayer as the well-being of the one human family.
Lord Willetts (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the most reverend Primate on calling this debate on a very important issue: how, in a diverse and increasingly divergent society, we hold our country together. He is absolutely right to focus on that challenge. It has also been a very special debate because of the maiden speech from my noble friend Lord Sharma, and he is welcome to this House. He may think, in this his first debate, that he has strayed into a multiple edition of “Thought for the Day”: he has had about a fortnight’s broadcasts during this debate. Debates in this House take many characteristics; this is a distinctive debate and we have many others in many different styles.
I particularly appreciated a point which the most reverend Primate made, which I would like to develop, when he referred to institutions and their importance. If I may say so, sometimes we have talked about social cohesion as if it is feeling good about each other, a kind of social glue that we pour over our society and somehow hold ourselves together better as a result. Those instincts are admirable, but if I may say so, I found the intervention from the Cross Benches of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, particularly refreshing because he explicitly said that he was not going to appeal to those instincts. The real challenge of holding a society together is doing so without requiring admirable and highly motivated behaviour, however desirable that might be. Holding a society together, we should think much more of like drystone walling than somehow pouring glue over it. One of the insights, particularly in the Conservative tradition, is that institutions really matter if you are trying to hold a place together, because institutions are places where individuals interact more than once. The more that people find themselves interacting over time, the more co-operation develops because of mutual exchange and mutual benefit, without requiring high levels of saintliness or holiness.
That faith in institutions to which the most reverend Primate referred is, I have to say, one of the strengths of the Conservative tradition and also one of the things that holds us together as a nation state. It is not blood-and soil-nationalism; it is belief in a set of institutions which are of benefit to all of us, whatever our moral beliefs, our social, cultural or religious background. That is a very important strand to hold on to as we think about what holds us together.
I will make one other brief point. We have not really focused on what I think is the social contract of greatest significance in holding us together as a society, and that is the social contract between the generations. Over our lifetimes, we take out when we are dependent children and perhaps when we are elderly, and we may well at other times of our lives pay in or contribute. Those exchanges between the generations—some needing help, some offering help—are, I think, the most important single feature of the social contract. If we came into this world already independent, not requiring support and sustaining, I am not sure that society would exist in anything like the form that it does. This reciprocity and exchange between generations happens within the family and within society and is of mutual benefit.
I will now stray into extremely dangerous territory by, in the presence of the Bench of Bishops, making an observation about the 10 commandments, most of which are—I can see my noble friend Lord Brady turning towards me, looking shocked; I am going to stick with it. Most of the commandments are absolute. There is one commandment, which is often formulated in a much more contingent, almost contractual form, and that is the commandment about relations between the generations:
“Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the earth”.
It is very interesting that this commandment suggests some mutual benefit. It is interesting to speculate—I am sure lots of learned theologians have done precisely that—why you might think that honouring your father and mother made your life longer on earth, and why this itself should become a moral principle. Is it that if you show that you are honouring your father and mother, your children are more likely to honour you? Is it that this of itself is a worthwhile activity? But there is a hint, if I may say so, even if we go back to the biblical text, of some understanding of reciprocity and mutual benefit in the exchanges between the generations.
I notoriously argue that it so happens that one generation—the baby-boomer generation—has done particularly well out of this generational contract. Sometimes I am accused of being a generational warrior, promoting conflict between the generations. But actually, I am trying to appeal to what I think is one of the most widespread instincts that holds people together from a very wide range of social and cultural traditions: namely, the desire that our children should have a better life than we have. My view is that an appeal to our shared obligation to the younger generation is one of the most powerful, mutual and widely spread beliefs that would unite people, regardless of their prior religious or cultural commitments. I see it as a cause that would unite us.
There are many ways in which we can do more for the younger generation, from the practicalities of day-to-day economic policy, helping them get a foot on the housing ladder, to helping them build up the kind of assets that are a great advantage as one goes through life. However, we also heard in that excellent maiden speech from my noble friend Lord Sharma another obligation we have to the younger generations: we have produced far more carbon dioxide during our lives than we can possibly expect them to produce, and we need absolutely to rise to the challenge he set in his excellent maiden speech as one of the most important single ways in which we can discharge our obligation to future generations.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I thank the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York for successfully balloting this important debate, and I congratulate my noble friend Lord Sharma on his maiden speech. He not only has a degree in applied physics but qualified as a chartered accountant, and then has a wealth of experience over many years in both the private and public sectors. I can see that he will make many valuable contributions, based on real-life experience, to your Lordships’ House.
His Majesty’s Official Opposition are committed to fostering social cohesion, strong communities and strong local economies. Indeed, our aim is to work tirelessly and constructively with the Government to promote these ideals into real action, not just words. I will first set out where we are today on social cohesion and focus on the work that the previous Government undertook in order to make progress.
The strength of our communities and local economies is shown at its best during difficult times. I think noble Lords will all agree, without exception, that the Covid pandemic remains a powerful example of a time when communities throughout our United Kingdom came together to support each other during an incredibly challenging period. This was referenced by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. The noble Lord, Lord Bird, referred to Darning Street, and my noble friend Lord Jackson talked about the vaccine rollout.
Every one of us can remember the amazing efforts that volunteers made to ensure the most vulnerable residents had the food and other essential household goods they needed throughout the pandemic, with volunteer groups taking huge steps to support their neighbours and communities. The Make a Difference campaign saw thousands of laptops donated by men, women and families all over the country, so that as many schoolchildren as possible had the tools that they needed to enable them to continue their education while being confined to their homes. It was an unbelievably difficult period for many.
We are reminded of the vaccination campaign. In January 2022, the chief executive of NHS England paid tribute to the more than 100,000 people across the country who stepped up to the plate and supported the vaccine rollout. Among them were 48,000 volunteer stewards and 17,000 volunteer vaccinators.
More recently, we have seen communities come together in the face of flooding, following severe weather events such as Storm Bert. Just yesterday, it was reported that a volunteer in Northamptonshire has taken two weeks off work to lead a team of volunteers to help residents of the Billing Aquadrome, who have been affected by flooding. On the night of Storm Bert itself, I saw farmers in the local community going out on their tractors to warn drivers in advance of the rising flood-waters, and going further down the road and towing any unfortunate drivers for whom the waters were already too high. These are just two of the hundreds, if not thousands, of stories of the selflessness and bravery that people have shown during challenging times.
A strong community is the foundation stone of where we live and who we interact with. It can be our identity and essence; it can be a driving force for good deeds and doing the right thing. We know what we can achieve when we work together—it can be ground-breaking. That is precisely why strong communities matter.
However, we know that social cohesion can be challenged. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, all mentioned the riots we saw this summer. The riots were entirely wrong, not to mention unlawful. There are elements in our society who fall short of the values that we aspire to, and we must join together and speak with one voice in condemning violence. Whatever the purported motivation, violence of any form, whether on our streets, in our shops or in our homes, is never acceptable and is an affront to everything that we stand for.
It is critical that we seek to understand what went wrong, not just this summer but in previous events. We must establish the root causes of these crises and address them head-on. We have to bring those who committed criminal acts to justice, while at the same time seek to heal divisions wherever they appear. The riots showed that there is clearly much work to be done to bring our society together.
His Majesty’s Official Opposition will work constructively with the Government to build kinder and stronger communities, rooted in our core national values of tolerance and mutual respect. Let me repeat that: tolerance and mutual respect can be the only way forward, as was well referenced by my noble friend Lord Sandhurst.
When in government, we made a conscious and consistent effort to boost support for communities across the country through our landmark levelling-up program. Between 2019 and 2024, we put left-behind communities first, injecting cash directly into local authorities and community-led projects to revitalise our high streets, local pubs, community amenities and local schools. Through three rounds of our levelling up fund, we awarded £3.8 billion to 216 projects, including the restoration of community-owned assets, from Haigh Hall in Lancashire to Alford Manor House in the Lincolnshire Wolds. Both these assets are now set to be restored for the benefit of local people, bringing residents together and strengthening the community.
Community pubs up and down the country also play a vital role in bringing people together. Our £150 million community ownership fund supported hundreds of local groups to buy assets, such as community pubs and leisure centres. Our landmark school rebuilding fund is delivering major rebuilding and refurbishment projects at school and sixth-form college buildings across England, with buildings prioritised according to their condition. Since 2021, 518 projects have been announced under the scheme, delivering school buildings that communities can be proud of.
The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York mentioned that difference is a gift. My noble friend Lady Bottomley talked about diversity. My noble friend Lady Helic talked about anti-Semitism. My noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley gave an incredibly powerful insight into the frightening challenges that the Jewish community in the UK currently faces. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield talked about attacks on mosques.
We took action against the fear of anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hate by delivering £70 million for the Community Security Trust over four years and £29 million in support of mosques last year alone to keep them safe and secure. We supported places of worship of all religions, through the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, helping to restore places of worship in every part of the UK. The Government must look at our efforts to stamp out religious hatred and foster mutual respect within the UK, and build on that work. We hold our heads high on the record of the previous Government and our work to restore the high streets, pubs, leisure centres, community facilities and schools that are at the centre of community life in so many parts of our amazing country.
The current Government have now taken up the challenge of supporting community cohesion, and I would like to put a number of important questions to the Minister. Can he confirm that all the projects focused on strengthening our communities and our local economies announced under the previous Government will be honoured? Can he confirm that the Government will deliver the funding allocated through the third round of the levelling up fund, on time and in full? Finally, the Government have scrapped the future operation of the levelling-up agenda. Can the Minister set out what additional support left-behind communities can hope for under this Government?
In conclusion, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York flagged the importance of neighbours. My noble friend Lady Helic talked about integration and my noble friend Lady Porter talked about well-being and health. Social cohesion makes for a strong community; it makes a local economy; it drives prosperity; it drives success; it drives health and well-being for everyone in that community.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)
My Lords, first, I thank the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York for tabling this Motion. It is both a privilege and a responsibility to stand before your Lordships today to address a topic critical to our shared future: the need for social cohesion and strong, supportive communities in an era defined by rapid change and global uncertainty. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharma, for his work and dedication shown to tackling climate change, especially during his time as president of COP 26, and for making such an eloquent maiden speech.
In times of change and uncertainty—political, economic or global—it is easy to feel overwhelmed. The challenges we face can seem insurmountable, but history teaches us a powerful lesson: communities that stand together emerge stronger. Our society is woven together by thousands of local communities—communities where people look out for each other. Neighbours might not speak every day, but they notice if something is wrong, they check in on each other and they work to make things better. From grass-roots community groups to parish and town councils, people come together to improve their towns and cities, supporting one another and tackling local issues head on.
In uncertain times, it is cohesion across these communities that enables us to navigate disruption with confidence. Social cohesion can provide stability when the world feels unstable. Whether responding to a crisis such as a natural disaster or navigating long-term challenges such as economic shifts, the ability to collaborate and trust one another is the foundation for progress.
In recent years, we have really seen this truth play out. During the Covid-19 pandemic, communities came together to support the vulnerable, adapt to new realities and care for one another. People volunteered, shared resources and built networks of support that transcended differences. Places of worship transformed into vaccination centres, providing vital support services. They opened their doors to serve their communities, ensuring that vaccinations were accessible to everyone, including the most vulnerable. The work during the pandemic was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. I thank the noble Lord for providing such an optimistic view of the pandemic. These acts of solidarity proved that even in crisis our collective strength can overcome great challenges.
The violent disorder that followed the tragic incidents in Southport this summer showed just how fractured our social fabric can become when the flames of discord and hate are fanned. Yet there was an extraordinary response of unity and solidarity across the country. Faith leaders, local organisations and residents came together to host dialogues and provide support to those affected.
When I visited Southport, after the Prime Minister and Home Secretary, soon after the tragic events it suffered, I heard incredible stories of resilience and courage: stories of those people who came out the morning after the unrest, working as one to rebuild the walls of the mosque, clear up the damage on their streets and put their community back together—a point made by noble Lords across the House. Their efforts reminded us that even in the face of fear and anger, the power of community can prevail.
This has been a wide-ranging debate and there are many issues related to social cohesion, periods of change and global uncertainty that I could cover. I will address some of the specific issues raised today, first, by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York. I was pleased to hear of the launch of the new inquiry into community cohesion by our esteemed colleagues on the Women and Equalities Committee. The questions they have posed will help build our shared understanding of social cohesion and related issues. I look forward to hearing more about their work.
The most reverend Primate and the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, spoke very clearly about the issue of social media. The Online Safety Act 2023 is a new set of laws to protect children and adults online. The Act will give providers new duties to implement systems and processes to reduce the risk of their services being used for illegal activity and to take down illegal content when it appears. The strongest protections in the Act have been designed for children and will make the UK the safest place in the world to be a child online.
On the pertinent point about misinformation and disinformation, it is unacceptable that people are using social media to cause damage, distress and destruction in our communities. We will pursue criminal behaviour online just as we do offline. Where people can be identified, we will take action and ensure that those who incite hate online face the consequences. The Government have been proactively referring content which breaches terms of service to social media companies for them to assess and take action. The Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary has met social media platforms to make clear their responsibility in tackling the spread of hate online. The Prime Minister has said that the Government will look more broadly at the role of social media following the disturbances.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, and others mentioned Dame Sara Khan’s independent review into social cohesion and resilience, which made a range of recommendations to build cohesion and strengthen democratic resilience in the UK, including the concept of freedom-restricting harassment. This Government are always keen to see constructive proposals to address the threats we face and bring our communities together, so we are looking at that review.
The most reverend Primate also talked about poverty. Clearly, many communities are struggling with the effects of deprivation and poor economic growth, exacerbated by the increased cost of living, as mentioned across the House. If left unchecked, such conditions can increase vulnerability. There is evidence that deprivation, poor housing, low civil participation and poor community cohesion leave communities more at risk of extremist narratives, disinformation and conspiracy theories. For instance, seven of the 10 most deprived areas of England witnessed disorder over the summer. Middlesbrough, Blackpool, Liverpool, Hartlepool, Hull, Manchester and Blackburn all experienced violent disorder and are ranked in the top 10 most deprived local authorities in England. My department is undertaking work to understand how social and economic factors play a role in harming social cohesion and is developing a more strategic approach to supporting communities and societal resilience more broadly.
We need to eradicate child poverty. This is something that we have to work on. There is no silver bullet here, but the answers lie in tackling pay, benefits, work, housing, education and health. This is not just about policy; it is about priority. The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, made an important point about young, white, working-class males. We are determined to ensure that no one is left behind. Every young person must have the opportunity to fulfil their aspirations and play a part in our society. Our work in the opportunity mission aims to break the link between background and success to ensure that all children are able to reach their potential and thrive, including white, working-class boys—one of the lowest attaining groups in our schools. The mission will also tackle the national challenge of school absence, including by bolstering young people’s sense of belonging.
The Government were elected on a manifesto that stressed a partnership approach with local authorities. Together with local leaders, we will develop ambitious, long-term local growth plans and capitalise on existing strengths to deliver new opportunities and maximise potential. This is why 75 towns in the UK that were originally selected will receive a package of up to £20 million funding and support: a point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Effingham. Information on the new programme, including a revised prospectus and technical guidance, will be published in due course. These documents will set out the strategic objectives for the programme and how they will enable communities to deliver work in their areas to deliver the Government’s missions.
The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York also talked about devolution. The Government are committed to transferring power out of Westminster into local communities, with landmark legislation to expand devolution across England and devolve further powers to local leaders with local knowledge and skin in the game to drive economic growth and empower communities. This legislation will be coming soon. This cannot all happen overnight, but change starts now. Our ambition is for a new, stronger partnership between central and local government, recognising that each area has different strengths and that local representatives know them best.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield, the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, talked about faith engagement and faith leaders. The Government celebrate the central role of faith in our national life. Faith inspires a great number of people to public service and provides help to those in need. This Government are committed to harnessing the power of faith for national renewal, helping us to make progress against our missions and to improve social cohesion and resilience. My ministerial colleagues and I have been meeting a wide range of faith and belief leaders and representatives and interfaith practitioners, and have been heartened to hear about the important work they undertake to foster good relations in our communities. Let me be clear. In a few weeks, I will as a Minister have visited and engaged with all faiths across the country, not just the major faiths. I think that is important. One of my first engagements was at the Board of Deputies, where I talked to Muslim and Jewish leaders about how they can build better relationships.
My department was pleased to support the recent running of Inter Faith Week, and we still fund a number of partners delivering excellent cohesion programmes in local communities, which we know contribute to positive interfaith relations. I have heard calls about the importance of faith literacy in government and our public services, which I will consider carefully as part of my wider work as Minister for Faith.
The noble Lord, Lord Leigh, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield and the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, talked about hate crime, and it is shocking that recent Home Office statistics show that 71% of all religious hate crime constitutes anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. We will be tackling this problem, and we will soon announce our approach to dealing with Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. I also assure the House that the Government are not focusing on combating anti-Semitism and Islamophobia at the expense of hate crimes against those of other faiths. We are clear that all forms of racial and religious discrimination are completely unacceptable. Our focus is on building a strong culture of cohesion where diversity is celebrated.
I know that global events pose challenges to our communities in the UK. Prejudices and fear no longer remain confined to distant conflicts. They cross borders and directly impact our communities, as pointed out by the noble Lords, Lord Cashman and Lord Leigh of Hurley. I add my solidarity to the Jewish community in Melbourne who have suffered an atrocious attack in the synagogue.
The 7 October attacks, along with the ongoing war in Gaza and developments in Lebanon, have a profound effect on communities here in the UK. More than a year on, divisions still exist. Communities are feeling traumatised, isolated and less safe, while some individuals and groups seek to perpetuate further discord. However, I have been heartened by the efforts of individuals and communities to preserve vital local relationships, and our work with Muslim and Jewish communities to strengthen unity and ensure that everyone feels safe is ongoing. The Government are developing an integrated, cohesive approach to tackling these challenges, which will address racial and religious hatred and strengthen cohesion across all communities—more will be announced soon.
The Government strongly condemn the thuggery and racist rhetoric seen during the violent disorder in the summer. It has no place on our streets or online. The noble Baroness, Lady Porter of Fulwood, asked what more we will be doing. My department is leading a cross-government effort to support the recovery of the towns and cities affected and to develop a long-term, more strategic approach to social cohesion, working in partnership with communities and local stakeholders to rebuild, renew and address the deep-seated issues. We have launched a £15 million community recovery fund to support 20 areas that have been affected. This support package will be distributed to local leaders, allowing them to partner with local communities to direct the funding to the areas most in need and how they see fit to best support their communities’ recovery. That is just a start.
The noble Lords, Lord Sharma and Lord Willetts, alluded to climate change. Tackling the climate crisis is essential for our economic growth and our efforts to protect current and future generations. In November we announced new climate goals at COP 29, including reducing emissions by 81% by 2035, and the Prime Minister has called on other countries to bring forward ambitious targets. Of course, the Government are always mindful of the impact that wider global change and uncertainty, including climate change, can have on migration, while always ensuring that our immigration system is controlled and managed effectively.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie, talked about emergency preparedness—I will write to her on that statistic about websites. The Government are aware of the changing risk landscape over the coming years. MHCLG will look to go further in strengthening local resilience forums, following the recommendation of the 2021 independent review of national security risk assessment, which informed local resilience forums’ risk assessment. Those forums now have more dynamic risk information and a new analysis of chronic risks, including climate change, to inform long-term thinking.
The noble Lords, Lord Lilley and Lord Cashman, the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, and my noble friend Lord Griffiths talked about immigration. The UK has had a long, proud history of welcoming people from other countries. The country will always need migration. Our new Plan for Change document sets out how we will deal with legal and illegal migration.
On immigration specifically, the Prime Minister has been very clear that he believes there are legitimate concerns about immigration. Net migration is too high. The Government are determined to bring down historically high levels of legal migration and tackle the root causes behind it. By creating a fair and properly managed system, we will reduce net migration back down to sustainable levels.
On asylum, the Home Office has a legal obligation to support asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute, by providing appropriate support which usually includes accommodation. We engage with local authorities and key stakeholders as part of the process throughout the United Kingdom. We continue to identify a range of options to reduce the use of hotels, and it remains the Government’s ambition to end their use to ensure better use of public money.
On the point on education made by the noble Lords, Lord Mann and Lord Loomba, our schools, colleges and universities provide a critical opportunity for people to learn and interact with those from different backgrounds, culturally, religiously and economically. These interactions can influence the cohesion dynamics of communities around schools, while shaping the worldview of emerging generations of students.
The noble Lord, Leigh, talked about extremism. The Home Secretary commissioned a rapid review—or “sprint”—in July, to establish a new approach to counter extremism, and the Home Office will be taking that work forward.
On housing, the Government are committed to kick-starting economic growth and getting Britain building and we will deliver 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament. In the Budget, the Chancellor confirmed a settlement of over £5 billion for housing investment in 2025-26 to boost supply. We are acting quickly, but we will not be able to solve the housing crisis overnight. That is why the Government will publish a long-term housing strategy next year, which will set out our vision for a housing market that works for all.
The noble Lords, Lord Bird and Lord Bellingham, talked about homelessness levels, which are far too high. This can have a devastating impact on those affected. As announced in the Budget, funding for homelessness services is increasing next year by £233 million compared with this year. This increased spending will help to prevent rises in the number of families in temporary accommodation and help to prevent rough sleeping. This brings the total spend to nearly £1 billion in 2025-26.
The noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, and the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, talked about child abuse, the Church and John Smyth. I am horrified by the serious and violent child abuse perpetrated against children by the late John Smyth. My thoughts are with the victims of these awful crimes, and their families. The recent independent review by Keith Makin into the Church of England’s handling of the allegations raised serious concerns about safeguarding and transparency. I can assure the House that the Government are committed to tackling all forms of abuse against children. We commit to write to the noble Baroness specifically on her numerous questions.
Noble Lords raised a very important point about Leicester and how we can learn lessons from there. The noble Lord, Lord Austin, is chairing an independent review of the unrest. The review panel will establish what happened, the factors that contributed to these events and what could be done differently in future. It is an opportunity to understand the different factors that played a role in the unrest and how the Government, the city of Leicester and other local authority areas can learn from it. It is not an exercise in apportioning blame to any communities, groups or organisations. We will hear the panel’s recommendations in the new year. The priority is to hear from those who know their city best: community organisations, elected representatives, official bodies and, most importantly, local people.
This Government recognise the need to strengthen and reinforce communities’ social cohesion and societal resilience, which impacts our ability to respond to change and uncertainty. For too long we have relied on the resilience, resourcefulness and goodwill of individuals and our amazing voluntary, charity and faith sectors. Successive Governments have left people to simply muddle along, without the commitment, strategies and policies necessary to support communities to shape their own lives.
Key parts of the social fabric that once tied us together—community centres, youth clubs, sports grounds, cultural venues—have reduced in number, leaving fewer opportunities for connection. Since 2001, the number of pubs has fallen by 26%, and the number of libraries has decreased by 28% since 2005. Today, fewer than half of Britons report being in a community group. This Government are committed to ensuring that communities across Britain are safe, united, and resilient against the threats which this country faces. Since the summer, we have been working across the country with councils, faith and community leaders and other key partners to talk to them directly about their challenges—I have been up and down the country doing this.
In conclusion, I would like to reassure the House that we are determined to take a long-term strategic approach to building social cohesion and community resilience. My department is leading cross-government efforts to transform this landscape over the years to come. I am talking not of quick fixes but of a commitment to working hand-in-hand with local government, communities, the voluntary sector, business, the charity sector and anyone of goodwill to address and overcome the root causes of division and discontent.
So let us not underestimate the power of unity. In times of uncertainty, we can choose to come together rather than drift apart. We can build a future where everyone feels valued, every voice is heard and every community is a source of strength. As the saying goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”. Let us build a society where, no matter what challenges we face, we face them together. I will finish with the words of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York and his spiritual guidance—let us celebrate diversity. As the noble Lord, Lord Sharma, said in his speech, having united 200 countries, let us unite our country.
The Archbishop of York
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to everyone who has spoken today for the breadth of perspectives and experiences that we have received. I also thank again those who have made a debate happen on a Friday.
I have a few assurances to make. The noble Lord, Lord Bird, described himself, I think, as an ex-devout Catholic. My dear friend the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, was slightly concerned that he agreed with me so much. It just shows how close he is to the Kingdom of God.
The Archbishop of York
I remind the House, as I think I have said before, that I speak myself as a lapsed atheist, and I say to the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, that, because of that, I consider myself to be a sinner in need of grace. I do not pretend to be anything other and all sinners are welcome, whatever their political party. We stand as equals before God. I know that is how it feels to him, but please let him not think that. Whoever we are, we are welcome in the House of God, and all these other things, including our robes, do not matter.
I thank the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, and I assure him that, although I did not specifically speak of condemning violence, I absolutely condemn all violence, as do all of us on these Benches, and support the rule of law. I hope that was implicit in what I was saying. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Bellingham, that the Church of England has acted, since the Housing Matters report, to set up a housing association and a housing development agency and I will ask colleagues to write to him with details of how that piece of work, which the Bishop of Chelmsford is leading on, is developing.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Singh, as ever, for his moving words. They showed the deep connection between peoples of faith. I am reminded that Jesus nearly always made the hero of some of his most famous stories someone of another faith—we will come to the Good Samaritan in a moment. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, that we are inherently social. That is a really important starting point that immediately binds us together, one with another.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, that the Church of England is the local church. What matters is the Church on the ground, serving our communities day in, day out, which is also why I have to pay tribute to all volunteers, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, including church volunteers. I for one am glad that church volunteers now do safeguarding training, because it makes the Church a safer place. I did it myself two weeks ago: I regularly do safeguarding training and it is a good development in the life of the Church.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mann, that we need to pay attention to power: it is an important thing for all of us in positions of responsibility. The Church of England needs to be a humbler Church. I recognise that I stand here knowing that our Church has been humbled by these failings and we are determined to learn from them. I therefore thank the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, for her probing questions, which she could not ask us directly, but I heard them and I want her to know that. I also want her to know that there are many bishops asking these probing questions, not just one bishop. Proposals that will be coming to the General Synod of the Church of England in February are our response to the IICSA proposals and other reports, which we have been and are working on, towards independence.
I thank the Minister for his positive responses to the points that have been raised in this debate and for his undefended approach, which is something that we all need on these issues, where we know we all have so much to do and where we can all so easily fall short.
I affirm and support the Church Commissioners for the work they are doing, which is not about trying to go back 200 years but about building a better future. If we face up to our mistakes in the past, be it mistakes in safeguarding or, in that case, the horrors and evils of slavery, and build a better future then we all benefit because we build a better and more just society.
I say to my dear friend, the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, that it sounds like we need another cup of tea, brother. We do that from time to time; it is a bit battering but, as I have been saying to people recently when they ask, “How are you, Archbishop?”, I am battered but not yet fried. Still, we are humbled, and there are many things that he has put his finger on that the Church of England needs to address. Let us have another cup of tea, because there is so much investment going on in the Church of England on the ground and we need to address that. However, it was not the Church that closed churches in the pandemic; that was the Prime Minister.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, for what he said about intergenerational community. I remind him and the House that the faith community is probably the only place left in our society where generations meet.
Lastly, I have to rise to the bait that the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, dangled before me early on about the good Samaritan. He asked himself a different version of the very question that the lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?”, though the noble Lord put it like this: “Is there a hierarchy of obligations?” I dare to suggest that he got his answer from his own Benches, not least from the powerful, important and moving speech by the noble Lord, Lord Sharma. We are in a climate emergency, and that teaches us that our well-being and survival are tied up with that of our neighbours across the whole world.
The noble Baroness, Lady Helic, made a moving speech—these were not her words, but they are what I heard—about building coalitions of good will across difference, and I say to the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, that a lot of good work is going on at the local level with people of different faiths working together. Andy Burnham has initiated such work in Greater Manchester and I am involved in trying to get that started in York and North Yorkshire, while my right reverend friend the Bishop of Bristol spoke about the One City initiative in Bristol. All these things are based on the idea that we belong to one another.
In fact, as a Christian—sorry to go all theological, but the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, did ask—we believe that God is a community of persons. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and we who are made in the image of God are at our best when we build communities that give and receive a reciprocity of the love that we see in God and which we try to mirror here on earth.
So is there a hierarchy of obligations? When Jesus was asked, “Who is my neighbour?”, he did not actually answer that question. He asked another one—“Who is neighbour to you?”—and told a story, one that we all love because it makes fun of people in power. He said there was a priest and there was a lawyer, but they did not do what common decency and the law require. They failed. As I say, I speak here as someone who knows our Church has failed.
So, who will be the hero of the story? The people listening, who know this story, think it will make fun of the lawyer and the priest; the hero will be the ordinary man in the street—the good Jew. But Jesus turns it on its head. The hero is not who you expect it to be. The hero is the stranger. The hero is the foreigner. The hero is the heretic. Worse than that, the hero is also wealthy, just to rub salt into the wounds.
That is the person who ministers to you. So, is there a hierarchy of obligations? I would put it differently. There is the human community, of which I am a part. I have obligations and responsibilities to my neighbour, whoever they are, and I want to build a society—this, for me, is a fundamentally spiritual and Christian point—where I can love my neighbour and my neighbour can love and serve me. I welcome all in trying to build such a society.
I will finish with an illustration of the power of the good Samaritan, who is a neighbour to you when you are in the ditch. Let us imagine Donald Trump in a ditch, and that it is an illegal Mexican refugee who gives him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. That is the power of the story, and that is the challenge before us about loving and serving each other. I welcome the conversation and the debate. I will be praying that we can rise to that challenge and build a more socially cohesive world.