Faith Group Relationships

Debate between Lord Scott of Foscote and Baroness Warsi

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

My Lords, the issue of anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia is something that I have personally championed. One of the first speeches that I gave in government was about Islamophobia. I used the phrase, “Islamophobia has passed the dinner-table test”—and probably still bear the scars of it. It is important that we fight this new form of hate crime and that the Government have, rightly, invested in projects such as Tell MAMA, to record and make sure the data on anti-Muslim hate crime are accurate and credible.

It is important to make another point; we have been here before. There have been moments in our history when we have not been entirely comfortable with a faith community and we have questioned the loyalty of faith communities, whether that was the Jewish or the Catholic community. But our trust in our institutions and values has got us through it—and we will get through it again.

[Lord Scott of Foscote (CB)]

My Lords, I have an interest on this Question because one of my two sons has become a Muslim and one of my two daughters has become a Muslim. I have 12 lovely grandchildren, seven of whom are little Muslims—or not that little now, because one of them is 21. And, of course, I have a Muslim son-in-law and a Muslim daughter-in-law. Family relationships since those events took place have been as happily familial, as close and as good as any parent or grandparent could wish. If an improvement is needed in relationships between faith groups, one way of promoting that might be to encourage interfaith marriages.

[Baroness Warsi]

First and foremost, my Lords, it is important that we allow people to marry somebody of their choosing, whatever faith they belong to. That is why I am incredibly proud that the Government have done so much work on the issue of forced marriages, including criminalising a practice that should have been criminalised many years ago.