Hate Crime

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, Back-Bench questions are meant to be brief, so will the noble Baroness please ask a question?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness for the work that she does for the CST. Indeed, I commend the work of organisations such as the CST for the Jewish community and of Tell MAMA in the reporting that it provides within the Muslim community. Our faith communities are central and pivotal in helping us to find and determine some of the solutions for the kind of integration that we want to see.

The noble Baroness makes a point about schools. There are many good examples of schools that are operating according to a particular faith ethos. We need to take those examples and ensure that they are translated across the board. Let me assure the noble Baroness that the Government are not complacent. The challenges that we are facing in certain sectors of society showing fragmentation and isolation need to be tackled full on, and the Government are seeking to do that through various policies, including tackling some of the challenges of radicalisation, both from the far right and from those usurping and hijacking faith, through our counterextremism strategy.