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19 July 2007 : Column 155WH—continued

Barbara Keeley (Worsley) (Lab): A wide range of material is covered in the inquiry and has been covered
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in the debate. As a member of the inquiry panel, I wanted to touch again on some of the experiences reported to us by adults and young people at the hearing in Manchester that was part of the inquiry, and to relate them to the Government’s responses and some of the report’s recommendations.

Let me touch briefly on the context. I am bearing it in mind that the Minister responding to the debate was not involved in those earlier stages. Clearly, Greater Manchester was an important part of the inquiry because it has the second largest Jewish population in the UK, second only to London and numbering somewhere between 22,000 and 35,000. Salford, my local authority, has a quarter of that population, but most of it is not in my constituency. Like some other Members, I am reflecting not a constituency interest but a general area interest.

As the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) said, we visited Manchester and held hearings there, which occupied most of a day, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) and I visited the King David school. That was an important aspect of the inquiry, because that school educates about 1,000 Jewish children and young people. We have to regard those whom we encountered there as an important sample of the total population of Jewish children and young people in Greater Manchester, which, as I said, has the second largest such population in the UK.

As has been mentioned, we saw first hand at the school security measures that are now considered necessary, based on the advice of the police and the Community Security Trust. Reinforced fencing and CCTV could, in some urban areas of Manchester and Salford, be accepted and possibly even be standard. However, that is not the case for things such as anti-shatter glass and reinforced walls, controlled access to the school site, security guards and a necessary security rota of parents. How would parents at other schools feel if they were required to take part in a security rota to cover the school? Fire drills are, we hope, standard in schools, but not the bomb drills that they have at the King David school. As the hon. Member for Eastleigh said, those security measures cost £130,000 per annum, but because such support was not forthcoming from the then Department for Education and Skills, the parents are being asked to contribute that sum.

Looking back on the report, we should look to other countries, particularly France. If that school was in Paris, the French Government would contribute to the security that is judged necessary, so that those children could be educated.

John Mann: On reflection, does my hon. Friend agree with me that the panel and the group have perhaps been too moderate in some of their conclusions, specifically the recommendation that the Government should be contributing to the security for one of the highest performing state schools in the country?

Barbara Keeley: Indeed. As I looked back on what was reported to us in preparation for the debate, I was struck by the inordinate level of financial and physical involvement that those parents are required to have in the school’s security, in order to protect their children. We said a number of times during the inquiry that certain things there would not be acceptable to any
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other group in our communities. If they were Sikh or Catholic parents, they would complain to their MPs. However, we did encounter such a situation and I, like many other Members, was very surprised by it.

The majority, if not all, of the children and young people whom we spoke to had been threatened or abused because of their Jewish faith. The example was readily given to us of a car being driven directly at a female Jewish pupil at the school by a female adult. The boys reported that they were abused daily as they went to and from school on public transport. They had such things as “Jew!” and “Get out of our country” shouted at them.

In the recent past, there was a local campaign to prevent the King David primary school from relocating and building a new primary school in an open area. The British People’s party produced a leaflet saying, “Defend our English park”. There was a sense of “This is our country. It’s our England. You are not part of it”, which is a terrible thing to be faced with day in, day out. It was clear to me from talking to the students at King David school that that was directed at them and their families as part of their daily lives.

Let us imagine it. There were examples of students experiencing verbal abuse going to and from school, or when playing football with other schools. I guess that football is trying to face down the problem, but teams at other schools would ritually verbally abuse the students before they started playing. One girl, quite tellingly, explained what happened when she attended a drama group. Out-of-school activities are important to young people, but when it was discovered that she was Jewish, she was spat at and abused. She left the group because the teacher would not intervene on her behalf.

We got an overall view of the level of anti-Semitism. When we asked young people whether they felt that it had got worse, they said that they were noticing it more. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham touched on, the key thing is the extent to which it affected their choice of university. They got advice from older students already at university, and they were choosing where they wanted to go not on the basis of, for example, selecting a course, but at which university they would be safest.

Schools should not have to pay a lot of money for extra security. It would horrify us if other schools needed reinforced walls and anti-shatter glass. On the whole, schools should not have to employ security guards just to allow their pupils an education. As I said, most schools have fire drills, but this one has bomb drills. We will all realise that that must add to the sense of tension and fear felt by someone who has to go through that regularly. Schools and families should not have leaflet campaigns of hatred directed at them when they want to build a new primary school in a community. The school is long-established in the area, not new to the community.

There have been serious incidents in communities in Salford and Manchester, including stabbings and other extreme forms of violence. A young person being attacked with a baseball bat was one example. It is important that, beyond the school environment, families and adults are able to attend synagogue in their communities and express their religious faith without the fear of being attacked. In the afternoon session held with adults, councillors and the police, people reported that they
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had been attacked, spat at and verbally abused, and, again, had had cars driven at them when they were attending synagogue.

The level of anti-Semitism on campus is high, and in some places the situation seems to be worsening. I attended Salford university, which, happily, seems to have one of the better track records in the family of universities in Greater Manchester. We even heard that at Manchester medical school, people of the Jewish faith are not progressing in their careers as they might, which they do at Salford. The report and the evidence that we took showed a correlation between the situation in the middle east and the tensions there, the experiences of student bodies on campuses and school pupils, and the intimidation and harassment of Jewish students.

I keep coming back to the importance of people having to factor into their decisions their safety from attack or intimidation. This week, there was a statement to Parliament about the priorities of Ministers for Women. If any other group of people picked out a university or other educational institution to attend, based only on how safe they would feel, we would all be horrified. Yet the examples that we heard were unsurprising, given the history of my local universities. The university of Manchester students union proposed a motion in 2002 that anti-Zionism or criticism of Israel was not anti-Semitism, and called for a boycott of Israeli goods. We saw a leaflet that quoted neo-Nazi propaganda, reproducing historical anti-Semitic slander describing Jews as vampires and calling for them to be expelled.

On the activities of far-right parties, I have talked about the British People’s party’s campaign against the establishment of a new Jewish primary school in Heaton park, but we know that the British National party also campaigns in overtly anti-Semitic ways. Nick Griffin calls the holocaust a hoax and a “profitable lie”—an anti-Semitic act in itself. In local elections this year, the BNP campaigned more widely. It always stood one candidate in Salford, in the university ward, but, as in other parts of the country, its campaign has developed this year. It stood in six different wards across the three constituencies in Salford in May 2007. The hatred and anti-Semitic rhetoric of Nick Griffin is spreading through our communities and I, for one, as a Salford MP, find that disturbing, given that we have one quarter of the Jewish population of Greater Manchester’s 10 areas.

I wish to touch briefly on the work of the Holocaust Education Trust, which is an important counter to the rhetoric and hatred of the BNP. Young people from sixth forms and colleges can visit Auschwitz on a one-day trip and take part in seminars reflecting the lessons of the holocaust for their generation. Given what I have said about what is happening in Salford, I hope that a school from my constituency will take part in that scheme later this year. I hope that we are all promoting it, now that the finances allow it to happen.

It seems worrying that, of 600 anti-Semitic incidents recorded in the UK in 2006, a quarter took place in Greater Manchester. On the face of it, it is worrying for Greater Manchester to have a quarter of the incidents but only 10 per cent. of the Jewish population. Within those figures, almost half the incidents of assault or extreme violence in the UK took place there. I have detailed the experience of students at King David school and some unacceptable incidents in our community.


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However, I wish to record my own feelings after our day of inquiry in Greater Manchester and after the writing of the report. We can draw a different conclusion: it should be understood that Greater Manchester police is probably exemplary in how it records and monitors anti-Semitic incidents and co-operates with the Community Security Trust. As was mentioned in the Chamber today, sometimes an increase in the number of incidents is a sign not that things are getting worse, but that such incidents are being reported. That is the first step to things getting better. I would not want, through detailing what we found in Manchester, Salford and elsewhere in Greater Manchester, to leave the impression that things are terrible there. The work of the police there is very good.

There were further important examples of good practice in Manchester. The former Lord Mayor, Councillor Mohammed Afzal Khan, a Muslim, took a lead in his mayoral year on promoting inter-faith dialogue, and was joint chair of the Manchester Muslim-Jewish Forum.

Having said what I have, I add that there is much to welcome in the Government’s response to our all-party parliamentary inquiry. I wish to mention some particular things relating to Manchester hearings. The Government’s response condemns the rise in the number of such incidents and states that people should be able to live their lives free from verbal or physical attack, which they clearly are not doing. It rightly points out that anti-Semitism is starting to be accepted instead of condemned, which is an important point.

On anti-Semitism on campuses, about which a number of Members have spoken, there is an important recognition that Jewish students feel threatened and that, as we said in the report, the response of vice-chancellors is patchy. We really should start to insist that they take a more active role. I keep coming back to the fact that the young people to whom we talked cannot choose the university that they want to go to, the place where they want to live or the course they want to do; they have to consider their safety. That is unacceptable.

On the monitoring and recording of anti-Semitic incidents, if Greater Manchester police can do it, other areas can, too. The largest part of the Jewish population lives in London, and the statistics from London look ludicrous in comparison with those from Manchester. It can be done, and the recommendation that the Home Office research and report annually to Parliament is key. The other exemplary aspect in Manchester is the working together of the police and the Community Security Trust, which is vital. It was also important that the Crown Prosecution Service accepted that the low number of prosecutions of anti-Semitic incidents was not acceptable, and we should, as MPs, continue to review its plans in that regard.

The Government’s response says that the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government have a cross-government group of officials working on the matter. It is important that DCLG continues to work on it—it did not commit to it—and that it commissions an annual survey on attitudes and tensions. We cannot keep investigating in detail, as we did for the Manchester hearings, but it is important that a Government Department continue to work on the matter. The new single equality body, the Commission
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for Equality and Human Rights, has a key role to play in the months ahead. It is important that we feed information to it as it establishes itself and takes up that key role.

The step of promoting inter-faith programmes and leadership programmes for young Muslims and Jews was fully supported by the Government in their response. I mentioned the good example of the former mayor of Manchester. People in civic leadership positions such as the mayor of Manchester—who, in that case, was a Muslim—have an important role to play. The significance of their role could be promoted.

The Government’s response details further events involving leaders of major faith communities and the work of the Faith Communities Consultative Council, which are important. In March, there was an event for rabbis and imams and another for Muslim and Jewish women. Such leadership events must continue to be promoted. I should also mention that ITV Granada has a programme to build links in the community between different faiths and cultures. As a media body, it has taken on that role. I did not know about that previously, but I commend its work.

Finally, given everything that I have said about schools, and that other Members have said about the reported difficulties at King David school, we should look again at the idea in our report on twinning schools and communities. It is clearly wrong that students from one school cannot play football with pupils from another school without experiencing verbal prejudice. The idea of twinning schools of different faiths should be strongly encouraged and promoted.

I have dealt mainly with school, campus and community. It is important that we work toward people understanding these issues when they are younger, and, most importantly, toward Jewish children and young people being able to receive their education at school and university free from physical or verbal attack. Although there are some important steps in the Government’s response, it is clear that continued action and, perhaps, extra focus will be required in the future.

4.12 pm

Mrs. Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op): I pay tribute to the members of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism for performing a public service by bringing to public attention the growing and distressing phenomenon of anti-Semitism. It is certainly not anti-Semitic to criticise the state of Israel, but it is anti-Semitic to demonise Israel, the only Jewish state, in a way that no other state is demonised. As the report states, the effect of that is that

We see the effects in several ways. Reference has been made to statements by extremist Islamic movements, the British National party and Combat 18 that condemn Jews and Zionism together, but perhaps most disturbing is the way that anti-Semitic discourse, as the report describes it, has become part of mainstream society. The front page of the New Statesman on 4 January 2002 was truly shocking. That magazine is part of mainstream society, yet on its front page we saw the Jewish star of
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David piercing the Union Jack, which is the British symbol, under the heading, “A kosher conspiracy?” When the then editor of the New Statesman finally apologised for it, he stated that he simply had not understood what the imagery, which was, in fact, Nazi imagery, actually meant.

What has happened has led to more attacks on Jewish people and, as hon. Members have said, to increasing Jewish concern. British Jews are active citizens who have pioneered several different models of successful integration that could well be followed by other minority communities, yet many Jewish people in this country feel increasingly uneasy and disturbed. That is partly because of the growing number of attacks on Jews, as shown by the reports of the Community Security Trust, but also because of what is detected as a change of attitude. It has become all too commonly acceptable to criticise Jews and imply that they are a subversive people—again, relating them to negative views about the Jewish state and Zionism.

The report has increased public awareness of what is happening. I commend the members and chairman of the all-party group and the commission itself for what has been achieved. Many members of the Jewish community are asking what is to be done. The question is not just for the Jewish community; it is about the nature of our society. I hope that the Government and others will respond to the shocking information in the report and that we will see action.

4.15 pm

Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD): It is a privilege to be able to speak in this debate on behalf of the Liberal Democrats. I believe that I am the first speaker in the debate who does not have either of the two qualifications that other speakers have had. I did not serve on the commission nor do I have a Jewish background. For that matter, neither do I have a significant Jewish community in my constituency. Perhaps I can look on the subject of the debate and the debate so far from slightly outside the perspective of some of those who have spoken.

The all-party group’s inquiry is a moving piece of work. It is thorough and measured, and, for me, it was revelatory in many ways. I hope that it serves to be revelatory in so far as policy making goes, but not just Government policy making. Several speakers made it clear that overcoming the problem that the inquiry brought out will require changes in other parts of civic society.

This is a unique occasion. I understand that it is the first time that an all-party group’s report has been the subject of a debate and an official response from the Government. Indeed, I believe that it set you one or two procedural issues to deal with at the beginning of the debate, Sir John.

I welcome the Government’s response, which is a good first shot at a response, but, as has been made clear in the debate, is very much a case of work in progress with far more to come. The report has sounded the alarm, but we all understand that there is far more to be done before we can say that we have responded properly to the alert that has been given.


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