14:12 Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)

So it is right that I engage with the APPG, although I am also a vice-chair, and I thank the stakeholders who facilitated the appointment of a strong, indeed recently strengthened, group of staff to support the APPG. Just yesterday, together we hosted an event here in Parliament attended by very many MPs, and I thank them all for attending, not least the COP26 President, my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma).

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15:07 Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)

During COP26, I was at an event at the University of Glasgow organised by the Global Ethical Finance Initiative in which my good friend Dr Lorna Gold took part. The point was made that 80% of human beings on the planet hold or profess some kind of faith or religious belief in a creator god. When decisions are made about ethical finance, they are not taken in a vacuum or by an atheist minority. A majority of people claim to profess such views, so we have to find a way to play them out in practice, but we often see them compromised or abandoned.

The right to freedom of religion or belief is a huge concern to constituents in Glasgow North, as it is to the constituents of everyone who has spoken today. The situation in China, which we repeatedly hear about, is of particular concern. I have constituents who are very active on the issue of organ harvesting and the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners, and I know that they will be demonstrating outside Downing Street on Human Rights Day in a couple of weeks’ time. There is the situation of the Uyghur Muslims being forced into labour and re-education camps. When we talk about climate change, a lot of Chinese pollution is from manufacturing things that we buy in this country, and how many things do we use in this country, knowingly or otherwise, that have been made by people forced into labour and re-education camps?

On minorities elsewhere, Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan face stigmatisation, and I pay tribute to the great work that the Ahmadi community does in Glasgow and elsewhere, despite all of that. There is the ever-present risk of both antisemitism and Islamophobia, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) spoke so powerfully. The challenge facing indigenous beliefs and indigenous religions was particularly brought home to us during COP26. People are cleared off their land to make way for palm oil plantations or to access minerals that we all use in our mobile phones and jewellery. When those lands are sacred to people and they can no longer live and practise their beliefs on them, that is a form of religious oppression.

There was a very powerful COP26 Interfaith demo in George Square. Nine different religions and beliefs offered prayer and reflection in their own traditions, with hundreds of people coming together in the square and thousands of people following online around the world. The work of Interfaith Week has been recognised by the First Minister, and I also support its campaign to save the St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art in Glasgow, which is a world-class facility and must be preserved.

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