Sri Lanka

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Let me also commend her for the work that she has done in championing the rights of Rohingya Muslims in Burma; I think that my first contact with her when I became Foreign Secretary was in that connection.

It is important to understand that it is an easy first step to target and attack someone because of their religion, and that in very poor countries where many people have not had a proper education it is easy to whip up feelings in a way that can be lethal.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend and the shadow Foreign Secretary for what they have said this afternoon. The freedom to practise a faith—in the community or alone, in public or in private—or to change one’s religion, or follow none at all, goes to the heart of what freedom means. Does my right hon. Friend agree that freedom of religion is not an optional extra but goes to the heart of our freedom values, and will he confirm that he will continue the excellent work that he has begun in his Department, which has made that a central focus?

[Mr Hunt]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Freedom of religious belief is just a form of freedom of belief. The fact is that states which try to control what people believe will try to affect their human rights in many other ways as well. One of the points made by the Archbishop of Canterbury is that the countries that have the biggest problems when it comes to freedom of religious belief tend to have the biggest human rights problems generally. That is a kind of litmus test of the freedom that people have in different countries, which is why it is such an important issue.