Legislation Not Enough to Address Security Threat, warns Sentamu

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has used his maiden speech in the House of Lords yesterday to argue that it will take more than new legislation and greater powers to address the current security threat.

Dr Sentamu was speaking in response to the Queen's Speech which proposed enhanced powers to ensure security and stability in the UK.

He questioned, however, "whether there is an over-reliance by this government on the power of legislation and good assumptions rather than on partnership with institutions and groups in civil society and members of local communities to provide a strong, secure and stable United Kingdom."

Dr Sentamu challenged a new way of thinking to find a solution to "fractious communities" as he warned the government against encumbering institutions, groups and individuals with a "legal spider's web".

"A statute is a statement of public policy, but is it wise to use it as a means of giving confidence and assurance to fractious communities? By using the statute in this way, as a means of curing all our ills, don't we run the danger of spinning a legal spider's web, from which institutions, groups in civil society and members of local communities stand little chance of ever escaping?

"In my limited experience, strong, secure civil communities cannot be engineered.

"The changes that are necessary for such a desired transformation require a complete turnaround in the way we think and behave."

Dr Sentamu stressed the urgent need to reaffirm Christian values in the UK, values which he added were to be found across the mainline religions as well as among people of good will rather than faith.

And he encouraged these principles to influence legislation, saying that the government needed "to find a way in which religion, morals and law are once again indistinguishably mixed together".

"The severance of law from morality and of religion from law has unhelpfully gone too far. Seeing the enforcement of order as the main function of law is driving us to pass more and more laws in the hope of creating security in our communities.

"Wouldn't the aim of doing justice through laws which are rooted in religion and morality be a surer way of delivering 'a strong, secure and stable' United Kingdom?"

Dr Sentamu argued that the solution to the security issue lay in giving individuals a "vision of wholeness" and sense of belonging.

"We must seek as a nation to create neighbourhoods that are flourishing, safe, clean and generous; as well as tackling anyone who wishes to maim and kill others by suicide bombing," he said.

"We need to offer a vision of wholeness in a compelling and imaginative way that would integrate and include those who are excluded, and turn would-be bombers, self-excluding and deluded despisers of their fellow citizens, into belongers."