Lord Bishop of Norwich
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(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, the noble Lord is right about the general nature of the fact that we have a considerable body of hate crime based on race, gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation, age and so on. Any hate crime is a crime against us all; that is a starting point. It is worth noting that we have some very effective legislation in this country, which is—thank goodness—very much enforced on a routine and regular basis. I do not accept that we are unable to act on this because we have no particular definition of Islamophobia. As I said, considerable and very effective work is done by Tell MAMA and the Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group in that area. We see the results of that every day through very effective reporting and enforcing, and considerable interfaith work done by groups coming together in that regard.
The Lord Bishop of Norwich
My Lords, does the Minister agree that, whatever our definition of Islamophobia, one of the most effective ways of preventing it is by good relationships between the different faith communities, exemplified by the new church/mosque twinning programme promoted by the Christian Muslim Forum? That is already established in Oldham, Rochdale, Walsall and Wolverhampton. What can the Government do to encourage those local community initiatives, which can transform the way in which a local community views Muslims in their midst?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is right about the many good examples on the ground, brought about by the Christian church, in conjunction with the Muslim religion and, often, with the Jewish religion. I have seen very effective partnerships, such as Nisa-Nashim, as well as the effective partnerships through virtually all our 42 cathedrals in England, where massive good work is done. Considerable good work, probably more effective than anything, is also done by prominent British Muslims through example. I am thinking of people such as Nadiya Hussain, Mo Farah and so on, who probably do far more by example than many of these programmes.