Face Coverings (Prohibition) Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

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.