Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-10-23
Topic: Civil Rights
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. It takes real courage to bring and keep this important, and uncomfortable in many ways, issue in the open. I speak as a member of the English Bar, a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and a founder member, of many years, of the international foundation for arbitration and dispute resolution, so I understand the issues. I will not repeat the legal and technical arguments. That would be otiose, given the many excellent speeches by your Lordships already in support of the Bill today I want to reference two examples of practical experience. Back in 1997, I fought for the parliamentary seat of Slough. I well recall going into brilliant grammar schools during the day to talk to the girls and boys. But in the evening, when I went to their homes, I was not even allowed to look at those same girls, let alone talk to them. They would go home with their brothers and change into their different dress. Their brothers would be allowed to mix with and meet people, such as myself, but the girls were sent straight into the kitchen, no one was allowed to speak to them and they were not even allowed to serve me food. I was treated as an honorary man. When I raised the issue of rights for women, I was thrown out of those houses. Indeed, I remember visiting a mosque one day—this is back in 1997—and turning to my husband to say, "We are storing up serious trouble in this country, given that so many young British citizens are not allowed to behave as we do and mix as we do". Secondly, I will always remember one young Muslim who I knew quite well and who was born in this country. He came up to me one day and said, "The trouble with you British people, we do not respect you; you are weak because you do not stand up for what you believe" I come to my central question to the Minister, to which I hope to receive a definitive reply. Will he agree with me that our jury system is no longer sustainable, given that a growing number of people in this country—British citizens, with all the amazing rights that citizenship bestows upon them—do not respect our rule of law and fundamental human rights? Does he agree that when a man has a genuine and heartfelt belief that the rights of women are different from the rights of men, our jury system is broken? We talk about improving the prospect for opportunities for ethnic minority judges. Will the Minister tell us whether we can, and do, allow judges to preside over our system of law when their fundamental beliefs are different We must face up to the fact that many Members of Parliament have turned a blind eye to what is happening, and what has been happening in their constituencies for years, for fear of losing votes. Indeed, many of us have been afraid to speak up for fear of being accused of Islamophobia What is the solution? That young British man who said that we are weak was quite right. At the core of a safe society, one that our Prime Minister rightly regularly refers to, is a cohesive society. If we are to gain the respect of everyone of all religious beliefs living in this country, we must now to do two things: allow this Bill to pass into law, and seriously rethink and introduce rigour into our rules for citizenship of this country, including rules that spell out and demand equal rights, regardless of gender, under one rule of law—our rule of law—with one system of justice for all.