Face Coverings (Prohibition) Bill

David Nuttall Excerpts

Friday 28th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hollobone]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and may I echo my remarks to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) by saying what a privilege it is that my hon. Friend is here today to take part in this debate? He is a champion of these private Members’ Bills Fridays and he always brings a very distinctive and very personal view to our proceedings. It is surprising to me that he and I are on different sides of this argument, because we agree on so many things, not least the importance of closed-circuit television in fighting crime. My hon. Friend is perhaps the foremost advocate in this place of the benefits of closed-circuit television, but of course one of the big problems with face coverings is that if someone whose face is covered is captured on CCTV, we cannot identify them.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; he is being very generous with his time so early in his remarks. He is touching on an important area that I wish to question him on briefly. One of the reasons this Bill is seen as particularly sensitive is that the two groups he has referred to are very separate. One may be out to break the law—they may be covering their face because they intend to break the law and not be seen—while the others are law abiding and are covering their face because of their religion. It is that conflict between those two groups that causes the difficulty with the Bill.

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. I am triply blessed today, given that he too is in his place and contributing to the debate. He is without parallel in his scrutiny of private Members’ legislation, which is to the advantage of us all. I want to make it clear from the outset that I know that there are strong views on both sides of this argument. There are strong merits and strong demerits to the Bill. I said earlier that, in many respects, I was sorry that it has come to needing legislation. The problem is that law-abiding citizens who cover their face for supposedly religious reasons are, by their actions, alienating so many of our other citizens in this country. It causes alarm and distress to many of our citizens who are not part of those religious groups to see Britain’s high streets being increasingly dominated by, especially, Islamic women who are covering their faces in full. I would be doing my constituents a disservice if I did not bring these concerns to the Floor of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hollobone]

I do understand that reluctance and, in many ways, it pains me greatly to propose this Bill. For me, although perhaps not for my hon. Friend, a line is crossed when we are talking about covering one’s face. For me, this is not about telling people what to wear—it is not about clothing; it is about the concealing of someone’s identity. That is where the big difference lies.

[Mr Nuttall]

Before we move on to the issue of identity, let us stick with the issue of communication. On a serious note, has my hon. Friend had any communication from the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, because deaf people rely on being able to see someone’s lips for the purposes of communication if they are a lip reader?

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, and I have had communications from deaf people who have raised it. They tell me how frustrated they feel whenever they are faced with a woman wearing a full-face veil, because they are simply unable to communicate, unless in a written form. That must be extremely difficult for deaf people and it is a real concern. It must be extremely difficult for veiled women who are deaf to engage with other veiled women in their communities. Some five interventions ago, the right hon. Member for Leicester East challenged me on the point about religious beliefs. I am not a Muslim; I am a member of the Church of England and I go to my local Salvation Army. I am very much from a Christian background, but I have huge respect for people of faith, whatever their faith might be, and that includes Islam. Of course, I am not an Islamic scholar, but I have researched the matter in some depth and nowhere at all, anywhere in the world, can I find any proscription that women are required by Islam to cover their face. As I understand it, the Koran, the holy book to Muslims, requires women to dress modestly, and the vast majority of Muslim women in this country adhere to that without covering their faces.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. I agree with much of what he has just said, as I agree with him about the need for this country to have its say in a referendum on whether we remain members of the European Union. I suspect we are on different sides in that argument, however, although we are on the same side in this debate.

The Bill was very well introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), with whom I almost always agree. He was supported in bringing the Bill to the House by my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Christchurch (Mr Chope), and I am sorry that they are not able to be in the Chamber today so that we can hear and debate with them their views on this matter.

The Bill deals with a matter which, while we may not like to admit it, is a concern for many people, because it is unusual in this country. Traditionally, of course, it has not been usual for many believers in the Christian religion to cover the front of their face, although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering said, it was traditional for Christians to cover their heads in going about their everyday business. In my early life I attended a Christian church at which many of the women would cover their heads; they made a special point of wearing a hat in church. Conversely, men were expected to take their hats off. I should declare an interest: I am a practising Christian and a church warden, and in that role still to this day I have sometimes very gently and discreetly had to ask gentlemen to remove their headgear when they enter church wearing a hat, just because of the sensitivities particularly of some of the older members of our congregation.

I am conscious of the fact that other Members have waited very patiently and want to speak on this matter, so I will not use up all the time and will instead try to allow sufficient time for others to speak, but I do want to make two brief points. First, the difficulty with this whole topic is that there are two groups that would be most affected by introducing a general ban on face coverings. In the first of those groups are those whose primary purpose, having committed or intending to commit a crime, is to escape detection by covering their face. I think we all agree that that is wrong, and it would be helpful if there were some way to separate that group from the rest, because we do not want to see that happening.

The second group comprises those who wish to cover their face for religious reasons. As we have heard, there is a debate about whether it is necessary for a female follower of the Islamic religion to wear a veil. I am not an Islamic scholar, and I do not know the rights and wrongs of this matter. There will be all sorts of views on whether that is right or wrong, but from my point of view, that does not really matter. My view is that if that is what they believe to be right, that should be the end of the matter.

[Mr Hollobone]

Throughout his speech, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) kept insinuating that I had not spoken to Muslim constituents about the Bill. On the contrary, I have had lots of conversations about it with Muslims in Kettering. Some of them have made the point that they are embarrassed, as Muslims, by Muslim women going around wearing full-face veils. Does my hon. Friend accept that there are Muslim women in Kettering who have a problem with face coverings?

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend makes the good point that there are different views even among the Muslim community on the merits or otherwise of people choosing to cover their face.

I take the view that, regardless of one’s religious belief, we should not ban things just because some people disapprove of them. I will not go into the statistics from the opinion polls, but they suggest that a large majority of British adults agree with the sentiment of my hon. Friend’s Bill, with 61% agreeing with the statement that the burqa should be banned in Britain, and 32% disagreeing. Those figures were taken from a YouGov poll taken last September.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman sought to make a comparison with the Christian faith. The Christian faith is very diverse, and includes Greek and Russian Orthodox, Presbyterian, Free Presbyterian and Catholic followers. Similarly, Islam is a diverse faith, given the ways in which Muslims worship their God.

[Mr Nuttall]

The hon. Gentleman is right. As with most religions, the extent to which someone observes the requirements of their religion can vary from Church to Church, from sect to sect and from individual to individual. Some people go to church every week, or as often as they can. Others who also regard themselves as religious go only once a month or once a year. All, in their own way, will regard themselves as religious people, but their observance might be quite different.

The Bill deals with what is undoubtedly seen as a problem in many sections of our community, but it would be wrong for us to introduce a general ban on face coverings. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said, clauses 2 and 3 would merit further debate. When an individual is required to remove their face-covering for the purpose of establishing identity, they should have to do so. The same applies when they are on private premises. However, in general terms, I will oppose the Bill this afternoon.