Face Coverings (Prohibition) Bill

Debate between Gerald Kaufman and Jeremy Corbyn

Friday 28th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

Every one of us, from our constituencies and from our daily lives, has the ability to contribute validly and constructively to the debate, as my hon. Friend has just done.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I applaud what my right hon. Friend has said. Does he not think that the Bill, were it to become law, would be the start of a very slippery slope and that we would be insisting on a kind of secularist conformity that would be damaging to the diversity of our communities, particularly constituencies of the sort that he and I have the honour to represent?

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend.

Over the years we have had too many restrictions on our civil liberties for all kinds of reasons. I might as well tell the House that when I was a junior Minister in the Labour Government I nearly resigned when, after the Birmingham bombings, Roy Jenkins introduced what I regarded to be oppressive legislation relating to the containment of terrorism. He did that for constituency reasons—he was a Birmingham MP. We are all subject to pressures, but the main reason I am proud to be British is that this is a country of tolerance. Indeed, tolerance is the wrong word. I do not believe that we have the right to “tolerate” women who wear the veil or to make a judgment on them, because it is their choice. I have all kinds of choices about the way I live my life, and people have the right to have opinions about them.

UNHCR Syrian Refugees Programme

Debate between Gerald Kaufman and Jeremy Corbyn

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship for the first time.

My parents were refugees. They came to this country from Polish ghettos to escape religious and political persecution. Subsequently, most of their families were murdered by the Nazis in the holocaust, which has been commemorated this week, but despite the trauma they were able to build new lives here. In the summer of 1939, my parents took into their home a young girl who was one of the last to escape on the Kindertransport. She, too, was able to build a life in this country, and my most recent information is that she has a grand-daughter at Manchester university. Helping refugees has lifelong benefits.

The current situation is being watched with anxiety and distress by the Syrian community in Manchester, with which I recently attended a meeting held at the British Muslim heritage centre in my constituency in memory of Dr Abbas Khan, whose murder caused such distress. If my postbag is any guide, that anxiety is shared by those of all ethnicities in my constituency and more widely. There is special concern for Palestinian refugees, who are refugees twice over—from their own country and now from a war for which they have no responsibility, with which they have no connection and in which they have not taken a side. They are enduring death and deprivation in Syria.

The al-Yarmouk camp, just outside Damascus, has been under siege for six months. It was inhabited by more than 155,000 Palestinian refugees, but of those fewer than 20,000 now remain. A list has been published, which is in my possession, of the names of those who have died in the camp and the causes of death. Again and again, that cause is listed as starvation. Refugees in this camp are surviving on grass, animal feed and spices dissolved in water. Extreme human suffering in primitive conditions is the norm. Only 200 food parcels have been delivered to the remaining 20,000 people marooned in the camp.

Some 560,000 Palestinian refugees are living in Syria, and more than half of them have been displaced. Their restrictive travel documents mean that the majority would be unable to leave the country and seek safety abroad even if there were an opportunity for them to do so. Neighbouring countries—I pay tribute to them for the help that they have provided—are overwhelmed by Syrian refugees who have managed to get into their territory.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Let me compliment my right hon. Friend on his speech, and on the work that he has done on behalf of Palestinian refugees. Is it not also the case that tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees have recently arrived in Syria, mainly from Iraq but also from other countries, and that they are in a very dangerous and very vulnerable situation? Some have not even received permanent settlement in Syria, and are therefore particularly vulnerable both to the civil war and to any refugee programme that may ignore them in the future.

[Sir Gerald Kaufman]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. No one—apart from the Syrian Government and another authority to which I shall refer in a moment—can be faulted for the efforts that are being made, but the situation on the ground is exceptionally difficult.

Although, as the Home Secretary has pointed out, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq have done their best to help, one neighbouring country that has not made the tiniest effort to do so is Israel. A large number of Israel’s population are refugees and descendants of refugees, and one would have thought that it would have some kind of conscience about the plight of refugees who are, in some instances, within yards of its borders, but the callous Government display no concern. The plight of the Palestinian refugees is their direct responsibility.

No one pretends that this situation can be dealt with easily. I join others in paying tribute to the Department for International Development for providing such huge amounts of money: that is the kind of thing that needs to be done, both because of its direct impact and because it demonstrates the determination of all the people of this country, and all the parties in the House, to do something about this ghastly situation. It is essential that we do not look back on it with the gnawing misgiving that we could have done more.

Interpreting and Translation Services

Debate between Gerald Kaufman and Jeremy Corbyn

Thursday 20th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) on initiating the debate and on the report of his Select Committee.

The right hon. Gentleman is known in the House for his understatement, and that is typified by his description of the system under the new contract as “shambolic”. That is as over-kind a description as it is possible to find. All the available information shows that the system is not only failing abjectly, but damaging seriously the administration of justice in this country. In addition, it is costing the taxpayer huge sums of money in abandoned trials and in other ways.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Does my right hon. Friend not think that the lesson can be drawn wider than for the translation services alone? The Ministry of Justice and others are obsessed with the contract culture. It distances Ministers from the immediacy of decisions and, at the other end, leaves the public and the victims in a much worse situation, with much less accountability on the delivery of services.