Antisemitism in Schools and Colleges

Chris Vince Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

That is an excellent question and it raises a very good point. The hon. Gentleman talks about being a father. As a mother, I too have had to have these conversations at home and it is important that we do. That was in part why I wanted to be absolutely explicit and clear—as we all need to be—in my opening statement about how antisemitism is revealing itself in modern times. But the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: this is hard; it is not easy for anybody.

I have great faith in our teaching workforce. We have some of the best teachers in the world in our schools, but we will be working with experts and the teaching profession to design a lot of the resources and the guidance and advice that we need. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that in addition to what I am announcing today we are on the cusp of our big curriculum review, and at the heart of that review will be media and digital literacy and equipping our young people with the ability to discern dis and misinformation and to ask the right questions and to understand where information is coming from and therefore what it might mean.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and Sir David Bell for his report. As a former teacher, I welcome the training being provided to teachers so that they have the skills and the toolkit to challenge this stain on our society. For once, I agree with many of the things said by the shadow Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott); anecdotally, I was so good at being politically neutral in school that a year 11 girl once accused me of being a Tory, so that is possible. It is right that school often acts as a mirror to things we see in the wider society, and that is something which the Harlow Jewish community is very concerned about—I had a conversation with a local rabbi about this at the weekend. What will the Secretary of State, working with Cabinet colleagues, do to tackle antisemitism, online and in wider society?

[Lucy Powell]

Well, that must have been some politically impartial class, and I thank my hon. Friend for allowing us to end this statement on that note, sending a very important signal to the country, and to our teaching workforce as well, that this is something we stand together on, shoulder to shoulder, resolutely as one Parliament, as one country, as one Government.

It might be helpful if I remind colleagues of one thing that was exposed in Sir David Bell’s review: in a survey of secondary school teachers who teach about the Holocaust, 40% reported encountering antisemitism coming into those classes among their students. This really is an issue that we all have to take forward, and I thank every single colleague here today for their contributions.