Civil Society Space

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for proposing the debate. We all know that he is a tireless and relentless campaigner on these issues. It is a great pleasure to take part in this debate, and to follow him and the hon. Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for Glasgow East (Natalie McGarry).

It is truly shocking that, according to the International Centre for Not-for-Profit Law:

“Since 2012, more than 120 laws constraining the freedoms of association or assembly have been proposed or enacted in 60 countries.”

I am not proposing to read out any more facts and figures from that organisation, but that gives us some context. There are many ways one could start with a debate on civil society, but I suspect that, in common with most people in this country, I began at the first course of refuge, which is Wikipedia. It describes civil society as the

“aggregate of non-governmental organizations and institutions that manifest interests and will of citizens.”

That is all very good. “Collins English Dictionary” told me that sometimes the term is used in the more general sense of

“the elements such as freedom of speech, an independent judiciary, etc, that make up a democratic society”.

Of course, if one wanted to look at it in an even more erudite way than Wikipedia, there is Aristotle’s “Politics”, where the whole idea of civil society—the “koinonia politika”—was of the community coming together with shared values for common wellbeing. More recently, we have works such as Robert D. Putnam’s “Bowling Alone”, which make the point that social capital and people coming together are vital in creating cohesion in different societies.

One very important thing to consider when we look at civil society internationally is how what we do can affect cohesion in this country. The hon. Members for Strangford and for Congleton spoke about a comprehensive range of countries and themes, as they so often do. I do not pretend to have such expertise, but I want to look at the impact of what happens in this country in the context of civil society abroad. An important manifestation of civil society in this country is the coming together of different communities. In north-east Wales we are privileged to have an organisation called Together Creating Communities. Since 1995, it has brought together a range of community groups: faith groups, some unions and other community groups. Together they have facilitated and become strong so that local people can take action.

At the end of last year in December, TCC won a charity award from The Guardian. TCC has a range of different activities that bring society together, including accountability meetings—it sounds a little terrifying and sometimes is—for candidates standing for election. It brings together a range of other campaigns, too. It brought together a diverse range of groups to make Wrexham the first fair trade county in Wales, forming the basis for which Wales became the first fair trade country in the world. It worked with statutory and voluntary bodies to create an emergency night shelter in Wrexham. Critically, it supported the Muslim community in establishing the Wrexham mosque at the old Wrexham miners’ centre.

Interestingly, the English Defence League in north Wales—I emphasise that it was the English Defence League —held a protest, although it did not attract many people. A key figure at the mosque made the point that, although it was Muslims in the area who wanted the mosque, they were backed by members of Christian Churches and by representatives of other groups all standing firm together. There is a lovely quote by one of the Muslim leaders on the Together Creating Communities website:

“When we went to negotiate with the council”—

this was to do with planning and land—

“we had two other TCC members with us and they were wearing dog collars. The deputy chief executive said: ‘Excuse me, I’m a bit puzzled, you’ve come to talk...about the mosque, so what are the two clergy wearing dog collars doing with you?’ The clergy said: ‘We support them, we are with them.’”

That is an important message from a part of the country where Muslims are a small minority and were supported by a larger faith group and wider society.

As I have said, TCC has a range of campaigns. I have described one of them. Others include tackling debt and irresponsible debt lenders and there is also the fair funeral campaign. TCC asked every funeral director in the county to commit to giving out the funeral price before it takes place, and it has secured that commitment from every one. TCC shows a flavour of what good civil society organisations can be like in bringing people together.

More widely in this country, we can be proud of a great deal of our charitable and civil traditions. I am often amused when I read about this subject. The whole gamut of opinion from neoliberals to Marxists have claimed different bits of the tradition as their own. That is because it is a rich tradition, including churches, faith groups, a range of different charities, mutuals, trade unions and a great many advocacy groups. They are all part of what we see as our tradition. That is why many of us were perturbed by certain aspects of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, which ran counter to that tradition. I will not dwell on that Act today, but I will dwell on how our tradition matters.

I am intrigued that, in 1601, charity was discussed in Parliament for the first time. The preamble to the Charitable Uses Act 1601 contained a list of purposes that the state believed were of general benefit to society. Of course, that was later developed by case law, which helped to form our modern definition of charitable purposes. So far, so good. What intrigues me even more was that all that was happening at the time of Elizabeth I, a Protestant monarch, who refused to insist that Catholics converted. That was in the early 17th and late 16th century when she repeatedly said,

“I would not open windows into men’s souls.”

She was told time and again, no doubt by the many advisers—I do not know whether there were special advisers in those days but I imagine there were—

[The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)]

They would have all been men.

[Susan Elan Jones]

Probably. The tradition of civil society and openness goes hand in hand with the development of charity in our country. It is fascinating that freedom of thought happened at the same time as freedom of action. That is very important for us to consider today.

I want to move on a few centuries and pay tribute to the work of the Charities Aid Foundation, which, as we know, provides great assistance to UK and international charities. It promotes general donations to charities and operates on six continents with services provided by local experts in nine countries: America, Australia, Bulgaria, Brazil, Canada, India, Russia and southern Africa. CAF has called on the Government to consider working even more with Governments overseas to develop civil society infrastructure where the UK is transitioning out of aid funding. In view of CAF’s expertise, will the Minister comment on that point?

My final thought on that subject is that we are probably in a time when nationalisms of different hues are growing and there is a populist message. The hon. Member for Congleton used a word that perhaps more of us should reflect on: incrementalism. It often starts with something small: a comment, a bit of rhetoric or —dare I say?—a bit of banter. It can then grow to something quite unmanageable: the bashing of Muslims and the insidious growth of anti-Semitism of different varieties on all parts of the political spectrum.

[Fiona Bruce]

The hon. Lady makes an important point in saying that it often grows to something unmanageable. One of the reasons we have such a massive refugee problem today is that so many people are denied their rights in their home places and are therefore displaced. Is that not an example of how we have incrementally caused a major problem?

[Susan Elan Jones]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady on that point. We also need to reflect on the demonisation of migrants, which in some cases seems to have dropped into common parlance. Let us remember that, in our country—I think it was in the early 1970s—there was a case that resulted in Sikh bus drivers being allowed to wear turbans. Let us remember how long ago that was and remember our tradition of tolerance.

[Andrew Rosindell in the Chair]

I have a little word for our friends across the pond. I find it extraordinary that certain of the United States of America still have the death penalty. Many people who claim to support religious and individual freedoms across the world probably get put into greater danger—some of the minorities and some of the Christian groups and the like—and they too face the death penalty. I find the very fact that American states have the death penalty quite extraordinary. The British Government support a global ban on the death penalty, but I find it extraordinary how many states in the US still have it.

More broadly, the story of Christians and Muslims coming together over the Wrexham mosque and similar ones may in the wider world in some small way strengthen the rights of Christians, who, particularly in the middle east and sub-Saharan Africa, face unprecedented hardship. That coming together and those stories from this country are important. If civil society matters at all—most of us believe it is fundamental—it is about bringing people together; freedom of expression; and the right to be different, to exercise freedoms and stand up for people with whose opinions we may disagree. That is a vital right in this country and this place. If we are truly to have a civil society based on community and tolerance, and if we care about civil society space in other parts of the world, what we do, think and say in our country matters.