Holocaust Memorial Day 2012

Debate between Jack Lopresti and Lord Barwell

Thursday 19th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend makes his point very powerfully. Earlier, I tried to touch on the fact that the victims of Nazi atrocity were clearly many and varied.

Dr David Tibbs was serving with 13 Para, which was also involved in the liberation of Belsen. He had a slightly different reaction:

“At Belsen, I felt a curious elation. Looking at all these terrible things, I thought, ‘Here is the justification for this war, for all the lives we have lost, for everything we’ve been through’”.

A few people in our society today argue that war never achieves anything. I myself am an opponent of one of the conflicts we are engaged in at the moment. However, those words are a reminder that, sometimes, violence does achieve something. In this case, it stopped, far too late, a tremendous atrocity.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. He spoke very movingly about the history and first-hand testimony. Does my hon. Friend share my dismay that the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a repeated holocaust denier, was given a platform to address the UN anti-racism conference in Geneva in April 2009, and that he spoke from a UN platform again on this subject in 2011?

[Gavin Barwell]

I regret that fact. I am a great believer in free speech, and if people such as Mr Ahmadinejad wish to reveal just how foolish they are by denying things for which the historical evidence is overwhelming, I do not have a problem with that, but I do not believe the United Nations should have given him a platform to do so.

The Riots

Debate between Jack Lopresti and Lord Barwell

Thursday 13th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Barwell]

I agree. Both are issues, but we should start with the individual responsibility of those involved. I will come on to develop both of those points during my speech.

The first lesson is the importance of tackling gang culture. My starting point on the issue is that this is not just a matter for the police. We cannot simply enforce the problem away. We also need to offer a way out of gangs to young people, many of whom may have felt pressured, in terms of their own safety, to get involved. We need to work with the local communities that are suffering from this problem to ensure that they are involved in bringing peer pressure to bear on those who are involved. There is a lot in the Centre for Social Justice report, “Dying to belong”, which was published in February 2009.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. He is talking about breaking gang culture. Does he agree that young people tend to be drawn to gang culture largely because of a lack of good role models in the community, a poverty of aspiration and the lack of social mobility in our country?

[Gavin Barwell]

Those are all factors. We could also look at family breakdown, and particularly a lack of male role models across the piece. As I said, the CSJ report has compelling analysis about what leads people to get involved. I look forward to the Government’s statement, which, the Minister may confirm, should be made in a couple of weeks’ time, on how they intend to respond.