INTERFAITH dialogue within the UK has “almost collapsed” since 7 October, the Archbishop of Canterbury told the House of Lords on Thursday.
In the ultimate day of debate on the King’s Speech, Archbishop Welby said that “tensions are high”, owing to the conflict in Gaza. He has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and the return of hostages (News, 23 May).
In his speech on Thursday, he praised the work of the Foreign Office’s conflict, stabilisation, and mediation team, which, he said, had been “enormously effective”.
“The cost — financial, human, and each other — of trying to stop conflict is much smaller than the associated fee of war once it has broken out,” he said, and urged further investment in peace-building and conflict-prevention.
He also called for UK foreign policy to be “religiously literate”, and advised wide engagement with NGOs and faith groups.
In his valedictory speech before retirement within the autumn (News, 3 May), the Bishop of Worcester, Dr John Inge, reiterated the Archbishop’s message, saying that the effectiveness of international development would depend partly on an “awareness of the role that transnational religious actors play in international affairs”.
Dr Inge has been a longstanding advocate for the help budget to return to 0.7 per cent of gross national income (GNI). In response, Lord Coaker, a minister within the Ministry of Defence, said that the Government sought to return aid spending to 0.7 per cent of GNI “as soon as we fiscally can”.
In April, Dr Inge had responded to news that a part of the budget was being spent on housing asylum-seekers within the UK: “The overseas aid budget must be restricted to — wait for it — overseas aid!” (News, 19 April).
Development, he said on Thursday, was “an indispensable contributor to peace and human flourishing”, and he welcomed the Government’s manifesto commitment to creating “a world free from poverty on a liveable planet”.
Tackling sovereign debt, particularly in Africa, was a vital step, he said, as, otherwise, lower-income countries “is not going to take care of the impacts of the climate crisis”.
Noting that the majority debt was owed to personal creditors in agreements governed by English law, he suggested that the Government introduce laws to incentivise them to “participate fully in multilateral debt-relief initiatives”.
He closed his final speech by saying: “Jesus tells us to like our neighbour as ourselves, implying that it’s in loving our neighbour, wherever they might be in our global village, that we properly love ourselves. That insight has all the time been at the guts of all that’s best in British values. I pray that it could remain so.”
Lord Houghton, a former General, paid tribute to Dr Inge’s contributions to the House of Lords, his “passion for people, cycling, and international affairs”, and his “fascination with Edwardian frock coats, episcopal toppers, and panama hats — sometimes other people’s”.
The Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Revd Philip Mounstephen, spoke about freedom of faith and belief (FoRB): a subject about which, as Bishop of Truro, he wrote a report for the previous government (News, 8 July 2019).
FoRB violations had wide-reaching effects, he said: alongside the physical features of persecution, “constant fear and stress undermine each community well-being and private health”, and “thousands and thousands are forced to flee their homes to flee persecution, resulting in immense humanitarian challenge.”
He called on the Government to appoint a special envoy for FoRB, reflecting the post that the Conservative MP Fiona Bruce had held through the previous government.
“Embedding FoRB at the guts of foreign policy and appointing a special envoy will simply mean that we’re more practical actors globally. In today’s world, we cannot afford to be anything less,” he said.
