IN A Lords debate that emphasised the importance of integration to community cohesion, Lord Rook of Wimbledon — a founding father of the Good Faith Partnership, and faith adviser to 2 Labour leaders, Ed Miliband and Sir Keir Starmer — made his maiden speech as a newly created life peer.
Formerly the Revd Dr Russell Rook, he grew up within the Salvation Army, was ordained in 2023/24, and is now a non-stipendiary minister at St Dionis’s, Parsons Green, in west London. “As an Anglican priest, I do know what it’s to want regular mercy and instruction. I’m thankful for grace when I actually have erred, and for kind and delicate correction where needed,” he said in the talk, last week.
“As a newcomer and ‘rookie’ member, if noble Lords will pardon the pun, I’ll little question require each of those for a while to come back.”
The Bishop of Lichfield, Dr Michael Ipgrave, took the chance to thank Lord Rook for “the work he has done through the years with the Churches, including the Church of England, through which he’s an ordained priest, and with communities of other faiths. I commend his tireless advocacy, as a key adviser to the Government, of the necessary role that faith plays within the lifetime of our country.”
Dr Ipgrave expressed a desire to underline how “religious education in schools plays a vital role in enabling understanding of various cultures, religions, and world views, equipping pupils from an early age with the knowledge and tools to grasp and thrive in a multicultural society. However, RE is just too often neglected as a subject.” He desired to know what the Government was doing about this in its community-cohesion efforts.
Lord Dholakia (Liberal Democrat), a Hindu, was positive about Christianity. “Many of the efforts for good race relations have their roots within the work of churches within the early days, and this continues even today. I thank them for what they’re doing.”
Lord Griffiths (Labour), a former President of the Methodist Conference, testified to his multifaith experience of the University of Roehampton, “when it appointed as its recent Chancellor the one who introduced this debate, the noble Baroness Lady Verma. Methodist plus Anglican plus Roman Catholic plus humanist now have the coherent head of a Hindu who helps us all to see even greater than we saw before.”
Baroness Scott (Conservative) was concerned on the lack of national traditions in “culturally a Christian country, and other people from all faiths and backgrounds can benefit from the Christmas and Easter breaks, though they might not be Christians themselves”. She asked about “the role that public institutions must play in fostering inclusivity without searching for to undermine our traditional cultural values”.
Responding for the Government, Lord Khan said that “integration is the inspiration on which social cohesion is built.”
Summing up the talk, Baroness Verma (Conservative) appealed to spiritual responsibility and the notion of political correctness. “Whatever faith you come from, in case your faith is doing something unsuitable, we must always collectively come out and call it out. That is the strength of , strong democracy. If we undermine it, the vacuums are then filled by individuals who generate hate.”
The motion, to take note “of the role of integration in reducing barriers to community cohesion within the United Kingdom”, was agreed.
