Anti-Semitism: University Campus Incidents

Lord Wasserman Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Wasserman (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on securing time for this debate. I also look forward very much to the maiden speech of my noble friend the Minister, whom I hope to meet in person soon.

We have all been sent some excellent material for this debate, full of interesting suggestions about how to tackle anti-Semitism on UK campuses. I want to focus not on ways of tackling anti-Semitism on campus but on ways of helping Jewish students to live with it. I want to do this because I believe that, as our late colleague Lord Sacks used to say, anti-Semitism is a virus which has been around for thousands of years and is unlikely to disappear any time soon, whether from our universities or elsewhere. That is why I believe that we must do whatever we can to make Jewish students in the UK feel secure and respected, so that when they graduate they will want to devote their talents and energy to making this country more prosperous and civilised.

The University Jewish Chaplaincy has been doing precisely this for over 50 years. I urge the Government to support this charity so that it can continue to do its work effectively for at least another half century.