National Life: Shared Values and Public Policy Priorities

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 2nd December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, we are all extremely grateful to the most reverend Primate for giving us the opportunity to have this wide-ranging debate. Having heard every single word that has been uttered, I can say it certainly has been a wide-ranging debate. During his extremely perceptive—I could almost use the word “visionary”—speech, the most reverend Primate talked about working towards a common purpose based on the shared values which, we have been reminded so often, are not uniquely British values but shared values that underpin any civilised society.

I could not help but think of the words said in the Chamber before the most reverend Primate made his splendid speech because, as with every last sitting day of the week, we began with Psalm 121, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills”, although this morning we had it in the metrical version from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester. When I go back to my home city of Lincoln and I look at the great and glorious cathedral on the hill, dominating not only the city but the countryside around, I think of how many people have been given inspiration and hope and have had their aspirations developed by that great building and all that it represents and encapsulates. And I cannot help but reflect that the true poor of the 21st century are those who have neither hope nor aspiration.

The real challenge facing us is to try to give to individuals a sense of hope and an aspiration. It is particularly germane at the moment because, without wanting to enter into the arguments over Brexit yet again, the fact of the matter is that, rightly or wrongly, many young people, including my grandchildren, feel that their hopes have been dashed and their aspirations reduced. It is up to us to try to prove them wrong, but that is how they feel, so this debate is indeed in every sense timely.

I want to give just two practical examples of how we could bring this sense of purpose to our national life. We have talked about the Abrahamic faith and other faiths. We had a very interesting speech from the noble Lord, Lord Singh, about the Sikhs. There is one thing that brings people of good will, whether of faith or not, together, and it is perhaps best encapsulated in the second great commandment, which is part of the communion service in the Anglican Church every week: “Love thy neighbour as thyself”, or in its secular version, “Do to others as you would be done by”.

I have said something similar to the most reverend Primate in the past, but I think he is in a unique position. As the senior Bishop under the Supreme Governor, Her Majesty the Queen, in the Anglican Communion he has a unique role. He can act as a catalyst. I would like to see, built on his splendid debate today, his taking a lead in bringing together the leaders of all faiths, whom I know he meets with regularly, and people of good will, including the humanists, to try and work out a charter of true values which can be inculcated in the young via their schools and universities.

That brings me on to my second point. At the risk of repeating things that I have said only recently, particularly in the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, I am a tremendous believer in our having a national citizenship scheme. I believe that every young person between the age of 15 and 18 should do some community service and receive a much higher level of citizenship education than is normally the case at the moment. When they reach the age of 18, they should make a public recognition not only of their rights but, to take up a point made a few moments ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, of their responsibilities, so that they have a rite of passage, or coming of age as it were, where they become full citizens. I would like this to be accompanied by the sort of citizenship ceremony that many new British subjects go through when they proclaim their allegiance to their new country.

I offer these as practical suggestions to the most reverend Primate, and in doing so, thank him again for the inspirational lead he gave at the beginning of this debate, which has indeed underlined many of those shared values which all of us fundamentally hold dear.