Terrorist Incident at Liverpool Women’s Hospital

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I am afraid to say to my noble friend that they do. Noble Lords will remember the Reading attack, which was one such case. In fact, the Reverend Mohammad Eghtedarian raised concerns about asylum seekers cynically posing as Christians way back in 2016, as did the Right Reverend Peter Wilcox, admitting that people had mixed motives for conversion to Christianity. People wanting to frustrate the system will use a range of different reasons to do so. What is sad about this is that it stops some of the more genuine asylum claimants coming to this country.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, a number of noble Lords have mentioned trust and confidence and reassuring the community. On reassuring the whole community of the United Kingdom, can there be a little less concern about specific communities and more open debate and discussion about the threat of Islamist extremism? People are nervous that they will be accused of being unfair to Muslim communities when actually many Muslims are worried about Islamist extremism. We need more open debate, because there is a feeling that we are not able to have that discussion. After the terrible murder of David Amess and all the things that we have faced, we need that to be openly discussed in this country, among all of us.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right. I have said so many times at this Dispatch Box that the vast majority of people who are Muslim and who live in this country are law-abiding, share our values and contribute to society. We have just celebrated their role in helping us in the First World War. We talked about free speech yesterday or the day before; I totally agree that, in these discussions, there should be respect for free speech.