Freedom of Religion or Belief: UK Foreign Policy

Sam Rushworth Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Northumberland (David Smith) for securing this debate. I was with him the day that his appointment was announced. It was after many weeks of us all wondering whether Downing Street would appoint an envoy. He kept it quiet until it was announced, but I was so pleased that it was my friend who was given that responsibility, because I cannot think of anybody better to take on that role.

I thank everyone who has spoken today. Every speech has moved me in some way. It is a testament to the way that freedom of religion or belief goes to the heart of our British values that we sit in cross-party consensus on this. And it is a testament to our nation that we can have this level of civility in our debate. I can look across to Opposition Members and see people I hold in high regard, notwithstanding our different views on various aspects of policy.

I join the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) in his tribute to Fiona Bruce in the role that she played. I had the privilege of working with Fiona when she organised the FORB ministerial conference in 2022. The fact that I was a Labour candidate at the time and she a Conservative MP never came into it, because we were both absolutely unified in a sense of purpose.

I had the blessing of being able to work briefly for about a year and a half on freedom of religion or belief. My background is in conflict prevention and human rights. Despite a decade in that space, when a friend asked me whether I would be willing to come and support Government relations around FORB, I thought I was being asked to work for a US business magazine because I had not actually heard that phrase before, which shows that we have some work to do. But I soon came to grips with the brief and came to develop a deep appreciation of the importance of freedom of religion or belief within human rights work and the work that we do around the world to prevent identity-based violence.

As I entered this new world, however, I did so with a critical eye. I will just mention a few things that I have noted as a call to all of us who care about FORB. One is that we need to look outwards and not inwards. We need to avoid a competition over which group is the most persecuted, and instead recognise that establishing the universal principles of FORB is the best way to secure freedoms and rights for everybody. Secondly, FORB does not give a right to impose one’s religion or beliefs on others. My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) spoke so well about the importance of combating anti-blasphemy laws and the crucial right to be able to not believe in a deity.

Thirdly, those of us who do come from a background of faith need also to recognise that the price of the freedom to practise our religion is to do no harm and to take responsibility. I think we need to do more sometimes to reach out to the LGBT community and others who have been historically marginalised and excluded, and that includes internationally. In Uganda, near where I used to work, a community is suffering intense persecution. It is in the name, sadly, of the God I worship that that persecution is being meted out. People from Afghanistan regularly reach out to me and tell me that they are living in a state of hiding akin to Anne Frank and her family, for fear of being exposed.

We need to emphasise the belief aspect of freedom of religion or belief, which includes humanism—the right not to believe. The right to share one’s faith must also entail the right to criticise that faith. I am a Latter-day Saint. I see that “The Book of Mormon” musical is on in the west end all the time. I am comfortable with that. I absolutely defend the right for people to criticise me or my faith, but there is a difference between criticising theological beliefs and stereotyping, or ascribing negative traits without evidence to the holders of those beliefs. Likewise, there is a difference between mocking a religion in its abstract or organised form and discriminating against an individual who identifies with it.

I want to speak to the strategy for a moment. This is a small point, but I think it is a really consequential one. We tend to think about our commitment to freedom of religion or belief in terms of negative rights—of protecting people against interference and infringements of their freedoms of conscience, speech or assembly—but I would suggest that for the UK truly to lead the world with our values, we need to assume our positive duty to enable those who are marginalised and persecuted to live in accordance with their faith and belief. We recognise that in our humanitarian response to war and disaster. We recognise the need for food, water, medicine and shelter, but could we also recognise the need for dignity, and the emotional and psychological need to live one’s faith? Could we not only allow people to live their religions, but actively assist them to do so?

I have seen great examples of that around the world, from the Muslim and Christian youth in the Central African Republic who work together to rebuild each other’s mosques and churches, to the AMAR Foundation in Iraq helping Yazidi refugees, particularly women and girls, find healing and empowerment through traditional religious clothing that they had to leave behind in their flight from ISIS.

[John Slinger]

rose—

[Sam Rushworth]

Apologies—I have almost finished. Members of my own church, the Latter-day Saints here in London, give out copies of the Quran to refugees. As we do this, let Britain continue to be a beacon for religious freedom around the world in an active sense.