Islamophobia Awareness Month — [Peter Dowd in the Chair]

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 2:55 pm on 24 November 2021.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Paul Bristow Paul Bristow Conservative, Peterborough 2:55, 24 November 2021

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is very humbling to see Muslim communities in my city help not only people in their own community, but those from communities in my city. They make me proud of Peterborough. It did not matter what background people were from, whether Muslim, Christian or eastern European. In Peterborough, we come in different shapes and sizes. We come from different cultures, different religions and different backgrounds, but we stood together as one city. I cannot think of a better example to promote the message of what a positive contribution Muslims made than the one that my hon. Friend gave, or how we all came together as one city.

We have also had success resulting from that in tackling Islamophobia. We have had Muslim councillors elected by huge majorities in wards where many Muslims do not live. People are not seeing this as a Muslim issue; they are seeing it in a completely and utterly colour-blind way. I urge all Members to come to Peterborough and see how a city working together actually works.

We have lots of work to do in this House, and we should be doing it cross-party. We should be tackling the hatred that I sometimes see across the country. Violence, attacks—these are despicable things that need to be stamped out. We also need to see the perhaps more subtle elements of Islamophobia stamped out. I remember the investigation by The Sun in January 2018 that showed that people with typically English-sounding names were given lower quotes than those with typically Muslim-sounding names. We can work together on this. I hope that the rest of the speeches by Opposition Members in this debate highlight that, and say how we can all work together to tackle Islamophobia.