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Terrorism and Community Relations

: The hon. Lady obviously knows her area in a way that I do not. The answer to the dilemma that she poses will be in liberating parents either to find places at the schools to which they wish to send their children or to take the initiative to commission a new type of school that will provide the education that they seek. I understood that that lay behind much of the policy announced by the Government in yesterday's White Paper. We shall have to see whether it is delivered. The hon. Lady performed a service to the country by the way in which she highlighted the importance of language and the importance of the role of women from the Muslim communities. Such issues are desperately sensitive. There is a real problem when children are held back. It is the last thing that the parents intend, but children might be held back because one parent has come from the subcontinent. The mother may go straight into a tradition of purdah. The language at home may not be English. In those circumstances, cultural isolation will be reinforced in a new generation. There might be tension between the pressure that the children come up against at school from their peer group and the mores that they are expected to adopt at home. As politicians, we should not be in the business of telling people how they should organise their marriages and private lives, but the Government must deal with certain issues, such as whether some proficiency in the English language should be required at the point of entry clearance rather than only at the point of naturalisation for citizenship. I shall not labour the point about foreign policy, but it is completely reasonable for a Minister from any party to say that the Government hear what foreign policy a particular group in Britain wants, but judge that, in the wider national interest, they will pursue action that the particular group does not wish them to take. To deny that foreign policy has had any impact on community relations in this country is to fly in the face of reality. The arguments that have been repeatedly put to me by my Muslim community have been twofold: first, that it was not being listened to and that the political system seemed unresponsive and, secondly, that a double standard was operating in western Europe and north America, that it was one law for Iraq and a different law for Kashmir or Chechnya. Without going into the merits or demerits of the arguments, there were deeply felt views within the Muslim community in my constituency, especially among the younger generation. It is for the Government of any party to find a way in which to engage in dialogue so that people know that what they say, how they vote and how they use the political system can make a difference. We have to accept collectively that issues such as Kashmir matter greatly to a large number of British people. We must alter our way of thinking and our notion of the British view of the world to take account of the fact that, for many British citizens now, what happens in the areas from where their families originally came will be important to how they frame their political judgments and how seriously they feel part of our mainstream society. Like almost everyone else who has spoken in the debate, I am conscious that I have been liberal with the gloom. However, I want to finish on a positive note. I remain an optimist about community relations in this country. I would sum my reasons for that approach in two ways. First, I look at history. I remember many years ago having reason to read the minutes of a Privy Council for the 1560s. I found reports coming into the Ministers of Elizabeth I of riots that were taking place in Essex because of the presence of communities of Dutch weavers. They had moved in as a result of Spanish rule in the Netherlands. There were the protests with which we are familiar today—the incomers were taking jobs, they were not speaking the language, and they were different. We have a record of being able to overcome such differences through time and through hard work. It is a mistake to think that there never were difficulties in the past. Secondly, and most importantly, I am an optimist because of what I saw in Aylesbury this year. There was a feeling of shock, but I remember vividly standing in the market place the day after the police action in the town. I was there for the midday ceremony, which was mirrored nationwide, to commemorate the victims of the London tube bombings. We stood there and heard the local imam denounce al-Qaeda and terrorism in vehement and moving language. As I looked around, I saw a true cross-section of British society. I saw the local chief of police, a lot of local councillors from all parties, a large number of young men from the local mosque, the office holders of a local branch of the Royal British Legion and 200 or 300 others. That gave me hope and confidence for the future. I believe that the challenges that the report has highlighted are grave, important and difficult, but with both political will and good will they can be overcome.