Plenary, 21 Nov 2001

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 21, 2001

Official Report 354KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

To lead our time for reflection this afternoon, we welcome Eileen Baxendale, who is a Baptist lay member working with asylum seekers in Glasgow.

Sir David, thank you for the opportunity to share with our Parliament today. My reflections come out of the work that we in Castlemilk Churches Together are doing with asylum seekers dispersed to Castlemilk in Glasgow.

First, I bring you some statements from asylum seekers that have particularly moved us.

"When they killed my father and arrested my brothers we decided to flee. My wife and four-year-old daughter went by horse and cart up the mountains and over the border; I went another way. My daughter still hides every time there is a knock at the door."

A couple with a little daughter were expecting their next baby any day. I asked what they would call the child.

"If it's a boy we will call him Ali, as that was the name of our son that the police killed."

A young man of 21 said:

"I came home one day and both my parents had been left for dead. Only my mother survived. I fled the country."

The Christian Bible says:

"God defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow and loves the alien giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt."

It also says:

"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."

Our new friends from a variety of other faiths tell us that their holy writings have similar imperatives—that all should help the poor and the dispossessed. I believe that such a commitment to social justice is a crucial requirement for our society.

Let us pray, at this difficult time, for justice and peace, both in our country and throughout the world.

Lord God, we pray today for the leaders of our nation, here in Parliament, in business, and in the faith communities, that they may hear what you are saying to us about justice and righteousness. Help us all, Lord, to build a just society.

We also commit to you, Lord, the world situation, and ask that there may be a way forward to peace in the troubled areas of the world, especially in Afghanistan.

Amen.

Before we begin our main business this afternoon, I am sure that members would like to welcome to the gallery the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Lord Russell-Johnston, who is on an official visit today. [Applause.]

I also ask members to note, in the revised business bulletin that has been circulated, that I have agreed to take an emergency question immediately before decision time. It qualifies as an emergency question because the Scottish lines of Atlantic Telecom are due to be cut off this weekend.