Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:02 pm on 7 May 2019.
In Islam, as I'm telling you now, Leanne, you must remember that our belief is that when you live in a different country as a Muslim, live like them. I'm not saying that I'm agreeing or disagreeing with Boris. Personal views are different. He might have seen a woman living with purdah or a hijab in a different way. But there is a personal choice. This woman or anybody who uses purdah—yes, I agree with that if there is a matter of security. Now, nobody knew 20 years ago about extremism. It has come into this equality reason now. Extremism has come out of all this nonsense about third-world countries, or the middle east when the problem started. Islamophobia has become the norm for others, and people take one step backwards from Islam. It's not that. Islamic belief is very kind and very loving. There are people in the Chamber here—as John Griffiths just mentioned, the biggest mosque in Wales is in Newport, in his constituency.
Purdah is a religious belief. Let people think what they believe, but I would not go against anything, because we've got to abide—. It's not against the law in this country yet, so why are we discussing it? If there is a law you make, yes, I'll come and talk to you about that. But the fact is, Deputy Presiding Officer, race relations is a very, very crucial issue for our next generation. What laws are we going to make now? We have been talking about this for the last 12 years, since I've been here. Look at the real statistics. Have we really achieved anything? We have to make some movement now by law, or with communities together, to make sure that we are one nation. Forget race, colour, religion, faith—we are one nation, and that should start from the family.
Education is the most important. If we start doing it now, in 2019, it may take another 15 to 20 years to make sure our young generation will understand each other nicely. That is what my point is, Deputy Presiding Officer: we must educate our children to make sure—. We have failed. We all failed to bring this racial equality. We have failed. I agree with that. But, to make our future better, we must make some better rules and regulations in this Chamber. Education, education, education. Religious understanding and belief must not discriminate. We just heard that a black person—the police check them quite often, more than others. That is discrimination. They're all British. There should be no difference between him and her—or black, white, yellow, green or whatever it is.
So, my point is: please, please, in this Chamber, we must make rules so that young generations must be taught in a way that they do not discriminate in future. It'll take 15 to 20 years before this nation is definitely transformed.