Education (Values of British Citizenship) Bill [HL]

Baroness Verma Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for bringing his Private Member’s Bill to the House, and I look forward to working with the Minister. I will take the couple of minutes I have to share the journey of my family in this country.

My grandfather arrived here in 1938, before World War II, from a business family in India. He fell in love with this country when he arrived and became part of rebuilding it during and after the war that broke out. My mother and father arrived here in 1960, with me as a nine month-old baby. My mother could not speak English. We were so lucky in those days that, even though there was huge discrimination, there was also great good will among communities. I had Irish neighbours on one side and Scottish neighbours on the other, and I grew up with broth and stew. I also grew up with them taking a keen interest in my mother being able to integrate. My father could speak English perfectly well, but my mother wanted to be part of the community. We grew up seeing our parents taking their full role in the community that we had the privilege of living in.

For me, what has always been important for all people who come to our great country is the ability to speak, read and write English. It enables everybody to integrate, to understand, to share and to be able to enjoy, as well as to join in sorrow when things go wrong. Sadly, over the years, that focus on people coming together, learning a language, being able to share and being able to understand each other has become more and more distant; I speak about this from my knowledge of my own city of Leicester. I want us to put real emphasis on the need for language. I want us to help those parents who have been here for many years but cannot integrate, because they cannot speak the language, so that they can share in that language.

My mum, who is now 85 and a real, proud British citizen, brought us up to look at ourselves as just citizens of this country. I do not want children growing up thinking that they are different. I want them to be able to be like me, sharing in festivals; Christmas in our house is probably bigger than in those of most families—28 of us get together—and then there are all the festivals. We grew up to respect and share our values with others, and they shared their values back. I hope that this is shared among us today.