Edinburgh Anti-Muslim Attacks

Question

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the factors that contributed to the attacks on Muslims in Edinburgh on 19 June; and what steps they are taking to prevent the normalisation of anti-Muslim hatred, violence and discrimination.

My Lords, before inviting the Minister to respond to the noble Baroness’s topical Question, which is about the attack on Muslims in Edinburgh last week, I remind the House that no reference should be made to the criminal case currently before the courts in relation to the individual charged with the attack. Noble Lords are free to discuss the general issue, but the specific case remains sub judice.

My Lords, the Government are deeply concerned by the attacks in Edinburgh. Our thoughts and prayers are with those injured and the wider community, as well as the families of the injured. Investigations are live but I can confirm that a suspect has been arrested and charged. On behalf of the Government, I thank the police and the emergency services for their response. We are continuing close engagement with the Scottish Government on this concerning incident, and we are working with police partners and communities to tackle anti-Muslim hostility, support victims and strengthen cohesion.

Muslims are terrified and do not feel safe. When will the Government update the hate crime strategy? It expired in 2020. When will the Government strengthen hate crime legislation? Loopholes in the law are being exploited by hate preachers. For example, stirring of religious hatred has to meet a much higher threshold compared to stirring of racial hatred for it to be a criminal offence. For people who follow any faith, their safety matters too.

I agree with the noble Baroness that people of any faith, and indeed of no faith, should feel safe, and we are taking sustained action to keep Muslims safe, to support victims and to challenge religious hatred. This includes strengthening protective security, with a record £40 million in funding for protective security measures, as set out in our strategy Protecting What Matters. We have adopted a clear definition of anti-Muslim hostility in order to consider some of the issues the noble Baroness raises, and we will appoint a special representative on anti-Muslim hostility. We have committed a £4 million fund to tackling anti-Muslim hostility as a first step.

My Lords, when the public discourse is deliberately poisoned, it is inevitable that we see the kind of hatred we tragically saw play out on the streets of Edinburgh. Is the Minister familiar with the now extensive academic and investigative reports from the United States—and indeed here in the United Kingdom—that have tracked states, foreign funders and wealthy domestic individuals who fund and support a network of groups, individuals, think tanks and media outlets to instigate and spread anti-Muslim tropes, racism and division? What are the Government’s plans to tackle this in light of their announced aim to reduce malign funding and foreign influence in our politics and public life?

I thank the noble Baroness for that question, and I pay tribute to her long history of distinguished contributions on these issues. I am on day eight of my post as Faith Minister, so I am not familiar with all the academic research she cites, but I would be very happy to receive it from the noble Baroness and view it. On the substantive point she raises, as she knows, we have commissioned the Rycroft review and we will be legislating on political donations. But I take very seriously exactly the point she is making about not just anti-Muslim hostility but religious hatred generally: that there are external actors which are seeking to disrupt our politics and disturb our communities.

My Lords, the shocking attack on Muslims in Edinburgh is the latest among the many and increasing attacks we have seen. This is not happening in a vacuum, as noble Lords have set out; the increasing anti-Muslim rhetoric and Islamophobia are becoming more and more normalised. It was very disappointing that after the latest attack last week, there was no statement, no COBRA meeting and very little from the media, at a time when British Muslims are feeling increasingly fearful for and worried about their safety. Does the Minister accept that what we need now is strong leadership to tackle this, not platitudes or a tweet?

There has been a statement from both the Prime Minister and the First Minister of Scotland, and I do not accept the characterisation that there is in any sense a lack of response to this. We understand that this problem of anti-Muslim hostility is getting worse. We take it seriously, and when incidents such as these occur, we will want to see the full force of the law used, and we will demonstrate the sort of leadership the noble Baroness is seeking. I do not quite recognise the picture she paints.

I welcome the noble Lord to his place; I think it is his first time at the Dispatch Box, so welcome. We also associate ourselves with his comments about the Edinburgh incident.

The overwhelming majority of people in this country reject hatred and violence. However, recent years have seen increasing tensions between communities and the growth of extremist narratives from different quarters. What assessment have the Government made of these trends, and what action are they taking to strengthen social cohesion and mutual respect across society?

I thank the noble Baroness for those kind words; it is a pleasure to do business with her again. We have set out in our Protecting What Matters strategy clear actions towards more confident, cohesive and resilient communities. We want to protect the UK’s social fabric and strengthen pride, belonging and cohesion. We cannot make people love each other, but it is the Government’s job to help, enable and support people living in communities where people do trust each other. Specifically on extremism, we intend to publish an annual report on the state of extremism as part of Protecting What Matters.

My Lords, the Edinburgh incident happened last week. In Belfast the week before that, people were driven out of their homes because they were immigrants. A couple of weeks ago, a Sikh was attacked in the West Midlands; and a couple of months ago, two female Sikhs were raped in their homes—and so on and so forth. People seem to be scapegoating migrants for all their troubles. If they cannot get a house, they blame the migrants; if they cannot get a job, they blame the migrants; if they cannot get a doctor’s appointment, they blame migrants—even though the doctor is a migrant. Is it not about time that the Government did something to really protect migrants, especially the Sikhs, who have been attacked in the West Midlands?

I thank the noble Lord for that question. The really important point is that most of the incidents he mentions are crimes, and we want to see the full force of the law used against those crimes. They are not about breakdowns of trust; they are not about attitudes to immigrants; they are crimes, and we want to see the law used to deal with that. If the law needs strengthening, we will strengthen it, as we have on crime and policing. It would be invidious of me to pick on the experiences of individual religious or racial communities—I realise those often converge. However, our first duty as the Government is to enforce the law, and we will.

My Lords, I am sure the whole House will agree that any violent attack against a specific community is utterly reprehensible. We have stood here too frequently in the last couple of years evaluating the aftermath of antisemitic attacks and attacks against Jewish people—violent terrorist attacks against a much tinier minority. Does the noble Lord agree that, given the plethora of anti-religious, terrorist and other criminal laws we have on the statute books, any further attempts to develop new policies and laws to deal with specific religions goes against the grain of our equality, and we should be even-handed and treat all religious discrimination fairly without two-tier perceptions of justice?

I absolutely do agree with that, and I do not think there is any question in my or the Government’s mind: we do not want two-tier protection for any individual community. On the noble Baroness’s question about antisemitism, my first visit in this job as Faith Minister was to the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester, and last week I also visited Manchester’s British Muslim Heritage Centre. I can tell the House that on both occasions, people were robust and trenchant in their views on the Government and what we are doing, but they were pleased to see me and pleased to see us taking action.