Communities: Young Muslims

Lord Singh of Wimbledon Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I agree with both of them. The Prime Minister is not saying that Muslims are a problem but that Islamic ideology is a problem that needs to be tackled, and Charles Farr was making a similar point.

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that ever since 9/11 there has been a huge increase in the number of attacks on Sikhs and Sikh places of worship in cases of mistaken identity? The most recent case was a machete attack on a young Sikh dentist in south Wales, which was described on “Newsnight” as Islamophobia. Does the Minister agree that hate crime is hate crime against any community, and that it should be tackled even-handedly, irrespective of the size of the community?