UK minister says MPs should debate on banning full-face veil in public

A British government minister has called for a parliamentary debate on banning young Muslim women from wearing full-face veils in public places.

Home Office minister Jeremy Browne has proposed that MPs should discuss whether the state should intervene in the issue after Birmingham Metropolitan college was forced to drop its ban on full-face veils under public pressure.

The Liberal Democrat claimed young Muslim girls have veils imposed upon them by their family and that should end.

“I am instinctively uneasy about restricting the freedom of individuals to observe the religion of their choice. That would apply to Christian minorities in the Middle East just as much as to religious minorities here in Britain,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“But there is genuine debate about whether girls should feel a compulsion to wear a veil …. We should be very cautious about imposing religious conformity on a society which has always valued freedom of expression,” he added.

Birmingham Metropolitan college had introduced regulations that required students to remove “hoodies, hats, caps and veils so that faces are visible”.

The move was backed by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron but the college had to lift the ban after a protest petition gathered 9,000 signatures and the National Union of Students Black Students’ Campaign called for protests over the blatant “infringement on the rights to religious freedom and cultural expression”.

Conservative MPs, including backbencher Sarah Wollaston, have frowned on lifting of the ban with Wollaston herself calling veils “deeply offensive” and making women invisible”.

However, opposition Labour party has embraced the Birmingham Metropolitan college’s decision as “enormously welcome”.

Cameron’s Conservative party are also separately pushing a parliamentary bill that prevents women from wearing face coverings.