Naz Shah
Main Page: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend highlights some of the challenges, particularly in his own constituency, of segregation and lack of integration, but I know that he will also be one of the first to accept that different communities have helped his constituency in so many ways and brought so much for people to celebrate. I will be more than happy to come to Bradford to look at both issues with him.
Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
While I second the invitation to Bradford from my colleague, the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), I do not second the other half of his question. How will the Minister address the structural inequalities affecting Muslim communities, and especially Muslim women, which frustrate their aspiration of progressive engagement with society?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady will know that a number of programmes are already in place. Since 2011-12, the Government have spent £60 million on integration and cohesion programmes, including teaching the English language to isolated communities, with many of those involved being women. However, we always have to see what more we can do, and there are some suggestions in this report. It would be wrong of me not to study them carefully and not to look at which ones to take forward and implement, and I look forward to doing that. If the hon. Lady has particular suggestions once she has looked at the report in detail, I would be happy to listen to them.