Anti-Semitism

Debate between Louise Ellman and Lord Mann

Thursday 20th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to hold this debate under your chairship, Ms Clark. We thank you for the appropriate and modern way in which you have consulted on how things should happen, which was noted and appreciated by all present.

I am pleased to see, for a Thursday afternoon, a significant attendance from all parts of the House. Many more would have liked to be present and to participate, not least Ministers and shadow Ministers who have informed me of their support for the debate and for the work of the all-party parliamentary group against anti-Semitism but who, under the conventions of Parliament, are required not to participate in a Back-Bench debate in Back-Bench time. Nevertheless, putting that on the record is appropriate.

More than five years ago, I commissioned the all-party inquiry into anti-Semitism, so ably chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), who will be participating in the debate, if he catches the Chair’s eye. Much progress has been made over those five years, but much more remains to be done.

The basis of the inquiry, which included four different parties among the 14 elected Members comprising the panel, is that parliamentarians, like it or not, have a leadership role. Our responsibility is, first and foremost, to ensure that our own Parliament is free of prejudice, including any prejudiced remarks, whether made calculatedly to offend or ignorantly. Part of our success is that parliamentarians in this Parliament, even if any of them ever considered overstepping the mark in acceptable discourse, would step back. In fact, we have a clear understanding of what is acceptable, which is a marker for the rest of the country.

Our robust approach, first and foremost, has been to take responsibility in our own parties—although we work on a cross-party basis—for sorting out issues of racism and, specifically, anti-Semitism. In other words, we sort out our own parties before pointing the finger at our opponents. As has been stated on the Floor of the House, therefore, successes in fact have not required publicity precisely because of what we might call the re-education of those who choose to depart from the norms of normal debate—they are re-educated in their own parties—which is exactly how political parties should take responsibility. It is a credit to all parties, throughout the House, that they have been prepared to live up to their responsibilities—even so, more can be done.

In the previous Parliament, as well as the current one—under the previous and current Governments—I and others in all parties have been rightly prepared not to pick holes in the minutiae when dealing with Ministers who have taken what we want forward. We have praised them the more they have taken small risks to move things on, such as taking on civil servants and the establishment. We have been prepared to back them and not to use the normal foil in debate, criticising when everything we call for is not met.

Such behaviour is appropriate and, in that spirit, let me commend the responsible Minister in the current Government who, like his predecessors in other Governments, has been prepared to go significantly beyond the call of normal ministerial duty in the attention, the seriousness and—I do not think this is overstating it—the boldness in pushing forward the agenda that we need pushing forward. Although appropriate, that moral integrity and political courage have been appreciated well beyond parliamentarians.

As an all-party group, we will continue to back Ministers who are prepared to do things. If their initiatives are not as successful as they and we would like, we will not criticise them, but we will praise them for being prepared to take difficult initiatives, instead of sitting on the fence when it is easier to do that sometimes.

There has also been significant support from civil servants—Sally Sealey and Neil O’Connor of the Department for Communities and Local Government spring to mind, as well as others working alongside them. They have made a significant input in their briefings to Ministers, which wise Ministers have read, absorbed and acted on. Doubtless, they will continue to do so.

With such backing, we have seen other Ministers do things beyond the normal call of duty—although they are normally my political opponents, that ought to be put on the record—such as the Secretary of State for Education, with whom I often clash. However, on issues relating to anti-Semitism, he has done more than one would normally expect of a Minister in his position. That should go on the positive record for all parties.

The Minister for Universities and Science, who has a difficult portfolio when it comes to anti-Semitism, has also given us great encouragement in his months in office by his incisive understanding of the issues as they affect his portfolio and by his preparedness to take action. We commend those Ministers in particular, for being ahead of the game. We encourage others, who are doing their bit, to be ahead of the game, too, because anti-Semitism remains a major issue in this country and worldwide.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I fully agree with my hon. Friend in praising the efforts of Ministers in dealing with the issue. However, is he aware of the growing concern in the British Jewish community about rising levels of anti-Semitism, including anti-Semitic rhetoric? Do Ministers have a role in combating that?

[John Mann]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will answer her question later in my remarks, when I will discuss such issues.

As a long-standing and internationally recognised expert and leader in combating anti-Semitism, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) is an example to us all. I thank her and use the opportunity of her intervention to advertise the meetings we have convened throughout the Jewish community since we received the Government response to our work as an all-party committee in December.

Locations for the meetings include Liverpool, where my hon. Friend is speaking, and certainly Leeds, Manchester, Oxford and London, but I will have forgotten some of the others. Members of Parliament from all parties are participating, not just explaining our good deeds, as it were, but taking on questions, comments and feedback from members of the Jewish community. Our first such event in Manchester was a huge success. It was well attended, and the rigorous debate by parliamentarians and the general public was well received. There will be more such events, which are an important aside to our work.

We must also put on the record our thanks to various groups. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and the support that I receive both indirectly and directly from the Parliamentary Committee Against Anti-Semitism Foundation, chaired by Stephen Rubin, and the support given by staff and others to the work of the all-party group against anti-Semitism. All members of the group receive that support, and I include it in my declaration.

We are grateful for and welcome the support and advice that we receive from the Community Security Trust. Gerald Ronson, Richard Benson and their colleagues ensure that we engage with the issues and are alert to the problems at all times. The trust does a magnificent job that other countries could learn from. The Board of Deputies of British Jews has worked closely with us, as has the Holocaust Educational Trust, which has involved parliamentarians and their young constituents in an effective programme to educate young people about our history. Our appreciation for those bodies is significant.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Mann]

Betwixt my constituency and that of my right hon. Friend is Sheffield. Perhaps one of the universities there will choose to get involved in this. That would be, if not an immediate priority, a welcome development in the future.

Let me put on the record some of the ways in which things have moved forward. Police forces record anti-Semitic hate crimes, and the first official statistics on anti-Semitic hate crime were released by the Association of Chief Police Officers on 30 November 2010. There is the Crown Prosecution Service review into the disparity between anti-Semitic incidents and the joint Government and charitable sector inter-faith school linking programme, championed by the Pears Foundation. Sir Andrew Burns has been appointed as the UK’s first envoy for post-holocaust issues. He is a great champion, and his work will have an impact. We welcome that appointment and look forward to working closely with him over the coming years. There has been international replication of our model of an all-party inquiry. Canada, Italy and Germany have all, in different ways, replicated what we have done. Following the successful London conference, there was a successful Canadian-led conference in Ottawa, addressed by the Canadian Prime Minister and many others. Indeed, 51 countries participated. We are making a mark in showing our successes but also being honest about our failures. Others are picking up on that and learning from their successes and failures as well.

The Government recently announced that the burden on Jewish parents in paying for school security guards would be addressed with Government money. The inquiry recognised that as a priority. It is not a gesture but significant practical support from Government.

We have been very active and have more members than ever before in Parliament. In addition, successive Governments have been highly and appropriately engaged on the issue. Nevertheless, 2009 was the worst year for anti-Semitic incidents that the CST has ever recorded, and 2010 is not likely to be much better. Those incidents continue, and often the issues are linked to the ongoing conflict in the middle east. It behoves the Government to ensure that at times of increased tension, communication plans are in place to keep community cohesion at its most effective. Of course, the attempts to boycott Israel have been repeatedly denounced by successive Governments. In response to such attempts, the Britain-Israel research and academic exchange initiative, with Foreign and Commonwealth Office support, is a practical step towards increased, rather than reduced, academic collaboration, and a step forward towards peace. We commend successive Governments for their approach to that.

More progress is needed on a few issues, one of which is internet hate. We look forward to the promised ministerial conference, convened via the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, on internet hate. That will be significant, and we look forward to guidelines being published on establishing mechanisms for complaint, which will empower those in the communities directly affected. We also look forward to a potential American initiative that will involve meeting directly and challenging the Googles and Microsofts of this world on precisely what they are, and are not, doing, to try to ensure that there is consistency of approach at a high level. I am certain that if our colleagues in the US Congress can organise such meetings, we will in some way be able to get representatives to participate in them, because the internet is an important priority in countering race hate.

The position is similar with newspapers. I noted the potential best practice emanating from the Manchester Evening News, which has a proactive moderating policy on the blogs and comment pages that it runs. All too often, however, newspapers say that it is beyond them to moderate highly offensive and inflammatory remarks. I do not think that that is beyond them; I think that there is a duty and responsibility in that respect. With regard to the online press in particular, we need to see that as a priority in the next year.

I implore the Minister to take these issues back to the Government, unless he has more information for us. The issues include reviewing the Press Complaints Commission guidelines to ensure that groups as well as individuals can register complaints. The areas of the media and the internet are big priorities in the next year. We are looking for more Government action to move the agenda on, not least because the Attorney-General’s office has successfully managed to prosecute those who have used vile and racist internet sites hosted abroad. We have made a breakthrough that the rest of the world is interested in and which is of huge significance, but we need to develop beyond that. It must not just be a case of isolated prosecutions that are important because they have been successful.

The Government need to take the issue directly to the European Union. Is it beyond the European Union to have some common standards relating to the internet that would greatly enhance what has happened in this country? That should be within our reach. I appreciate that there are different views on how good and useful, or useless, an institution it is, but whatever one’s views, it exists and we can agree to resource it amply. However, despite the history of the origins of the EU, the Commission has never, ever seen fighting anti-Semitism as part of its remit, which must change. Addressing the internet would be a good start, and dealing with education would also be significant. That needs to be in the work programme that the European Commissioners have every time that they are appointed, that the European Parliament can comment on, and that, as necessary, the Council of Ministers can be involved in.

[Mrs Ellman]

I applaud my hon. Friend for drawing attention to the very serious phenomenon of internet hate. Does he agree that messages of anti-Semitic hate, often coming from Islamic sources, should be challenged in a much stronger way than they are at the moment?

[John Mann]

The case that was prosecuted—the Sheppard and Whittle case—involved what we could call a Nazi website, hosted in the United States, but jihadist-style or simply offensive websites, allegedly coming from, for example, Saudi Arabia, are a major problem. The United States and Saudi Arabia are allies of ours. They are generally friendly and helpful countries. However, they have a different approach. In the United States, it is about the freedom of speech. We need an approach that moves forward this agenda. The interesting issue with the Sheppard and Whittle case is that we were able to prosecute in this country actions directly related to the use of hate sites abroad. If we could get such action fully entrenched in this country and developed across the European Union, it would have a significant practical impact, but it also would allow dialogue, be it with the Saudis or with the Americans, from a position of some strength in terms of what is there, so that we could attempt to eradicate all internet sites that are peddling race hate, from whatever direction they come. Of course, that is significant because it is the extremists, not the normal, general, common-sense people of this country, who are attracted to such sites.

Let me mention other priorities. I shall be reasonably brief on those, because I know that other hon. Members will want to discuss them. For Government, higher education is a top priority. Another organisation that we are delighted to co-operate with, the Union of Jewish Students, is having a lobby of Parliament. I hope that hon. Members in this Chamber and beyond will meet its representatives and hear at first hand their experiences of studying in universities. Our position is clear, but it is worth repeating. In an atmosphere that is widely recognised as the most tolerant in this tolerant and democratic country, the fact is that one group of students feels that it does not have the same freedoms as others. I have described that as a consequence of antisocial behaviour. It impacts on their ability to have the same freedoms as other students, and magnifies the importance of such problems well beyond what is seen in the rest of society. Those universities, as learning institutions, must therefore be exemplary in their approach. I hope that the Government will consider the successful agreement that has been negotiated and enacted at the university of Manchester. I do not declare an interest, because it is many years since I studied there and I am discussing current students and the present administration.

That model could be used in universities across the country—it could also be used abroad, not least in north America—to set the role and remit of universities and to say how students should complain and how the outside world, including us, should evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of the procedures that have been put in place. That is an important breakthrough, and I hope that the Government will give appropriate time and energy to it, as far too many of our university institutions are paralysed whenever there is a problem and do not know what to do. There is a model for universities, and they will receive our support.

With students wanting to study at university, we, as a democratic society, cannot have the kind of incidents that we saw at the London School of Economics in December. It was not only the comments of Abdel Bari Atwan that were unacceptable, because the behaviour that resulted from them was equally unacceptable. That is not tolerance, and it is not free speech. Protocols in universities, such as the one enacted by Manchester, need to be spread to all universities. If we get that this year, it will be a magnificent achievement for Parliament and an accolade for the Government, who will have our support in pushing the universities because the issue is important.

The Minister for Universities and Science has committed himself to making clear the Government’s position on speakers on campus, and we look forward to hearing what the Government have to say about that. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will commission a departmental review and update our freedom of speech guidance.

I shall speak next about elections. There has been controversy on elections, and there may be more today. I give an example. During the last election, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee explicitly targeted six Zionists. I believe that it regards Zionists as an insult. I made a lengthy submission to the Committee on Standards in Public Life on the subject, in which I asked whether it is fair in a democracy that a group from outside can spend resources targeting people in that way—whoever they target, and from whatever direction—because it puts them at an unfair disadvantage.