Steve Yemm

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West) for securing a very important debate. The safety of the Jewish community is not a marginal issue. It goes absolutely to the heart of the kind of country that we want to be. British Jews should be able to go to synagogue, send their children to school, travel, work and live openly as Jews without fear, intimidation or abuse. I pay tribute to the Community Security Trust, the police, synagogue security volunteers and Jewish schools and community organisations for their vital work, but it should trouble every one of us that such work is so necessary. The scale of the challenge is clear. CST recorded almost 2,000 antisemitic incidents across the UK in the first half of this year, the second highest total ever reported in the first six months of a year. That is not a short-term spike that has simply passed; it is a sustained change in the atmosphere faced by Jewish communities. This is not about asking for special treatment, but about the basic right to live without being held collectively responsible for events that happen around the world. No child should ever grow up thinking that security guards outside their school are a fact of life, yet for many Jewish children that is exactly what normality looks like right now. The Community Security Trust recorded almost 200 antisemitic incidents affecting schools in the first half of this year, the highest January-to-June total that it has recorded. Jewish children should not have to pass security guards on their way to school as if it were normal. Young people should never have to choose between their safety and being openly Jewish, and Jewish students should not have to change their routes across campus or hide parts of who they are. The Government must continue to support the security of Jewish communal life. However, as other Members have said, the answer cannot simply be higher fences and more guards. We must deal with the hatred that makes those fences necessary. That requires serious work on online radicalisation, proper enforcement against antisemitism in schools and universities, and a social cohesion strategy that is prepared to confront hard truths. I look forward to the Minister’s response on those issues. Jewish citizens are asking for what every citizen in the UK should rightly expect: the right to live, worship, study and contribute openly and safely. That is the absolute minimum that a decent society must guarantee for us all.