Middle East and North Africa

Lord James of Blackheath Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord James of Blackheath (Con)]

My Lords, I come to this issue from a slightly different direction. I live in West Sussex and am looking at what is happening there as a result of all this. There is huge zeal and enthusiasm to be called upon to do something to help. In the absence of any direction or instruction from anyone, local people are trying to make it up as they go along. They are getting into a muddle and need some help. It is time that the Government started to actively participate in getting communities to prepare to take in refugees, if or when that happens. If it is not going to happen, they need to say why not and do something else. If it is, they need to get prepared for it.

In the network of villages that comprises West Sussex, there is an assumption that they will be high on the list of places that will be called upon to act. They want to act. However, there are four questions we need to think about. First, how many can they take? Secondly, how will they feed them? Thirdly, what will happen to the education system locally? Fourthly, what will happen to interfaith relationships? Each question needs a separate response, and they are floundering at the moment on all scores.

I will deal first with the issue of food. The assumption is that, because we are basically a hangover from the Second World War, we will go back to something like the “British restaurants”, where people could get a halfpenny meal a day with products supplied by the Government. People in the villages are assuming that nothing will be paid towards the meals and they will have to provide them free from their own pocket, getting no food from the Government. They are quite happy to cook and provide the meals, but they need to know where the food is coming from because there is not enough money in these poor villages for people to pay for it themselves.

At the moment, we have a network of fetes and little garden parties going on to raise money. Every local artist is putting up his work to be sold. At the moment, I have to book an appointment to have a cup of coffee with my wife because she has become the head of the sales desk for these pictures and is very hard to get hold of. They are making a little money, here and there, but it is not going to be enough to feed the population for more than a week or two when they get there. Can we please have some decision from the Government as to what they actually intend to do if and when refugees are sent to the villages? At the moment, it is causing chaos.

When the refugees get there, what are we going to do with regard to the education system? We have a network of mostly faith schools; Church of England and Catholic. Will those schools be required to take the young who come in? If so, I can say right now where the first local civil war is going to come. It will come on the day that any Islamic or Muslim family declines to send its girl children to school. That will lead to protests on the streets, which will get very violent, very quickly. People need to be told what to do about that problem before it happens. In the case of schools for boys under the age of 10, are they going to have to take in, say, two or three Islamic boys? In that case, what will happen during the religious training part of the day? Will an imam go in to do that? In that case, do they take the Christian boys out and let them play football while that is happening? Somebody needs to produce a code of practice for all these things and think it through.

The worst of all the issues that I am looking at came to me last week, and puts a significant demand upon the Church of England to do something. People have said that of course they are going to be very hospitable to these people and think that we should give them our churches to turn into mosques. To which, having picked myself up off the floor, I say, “Are you mad? Just think that one through for a moment”. They answer that they will give them the church for three or four days a week and keep it for themselves for the rest. Fine, I say. But Christmas Day this year is on a Friday. Are we going to have midnight mass at 11 pm on the Thursday? What will be done with the mulled wine stall outside the church, which usually makes such a roaring profit? “Oh, we’ll give the profits to them as well”, they say. That is a nice solution but it is unrealistic.

The church has to get off its backside and tell people what to do about all these faith issues, so that they know how to cope with them before they make fools of themselves and destroy the last vestiges of our own link with our own culture and society down the ages—it is coming if we do not do something about it very quickly. I ask the Bishops to please take that message back to his Grace and the synod and ask them what they are going to do.

This is a real problem and it needs attacking. There is so much good will to make things happen properly, but we are doing nothing to use what is available to us, which is an enormous reservoir of good will, enthusiasm and determination to help. Please, Government, start this ball moving now, and please, church, do something really positive and effective.