In a disclosure that risks upsetting Muslims, he says he now asks women to remove their veils when they attend weekly surgeries in his Blackburn constituency.

Mr Straw, a former Foreign Secretary, says that the veil can be regarded as a visible statement of “separation and difference”. Some Muslim scholars do not believe it is obligatory.

In his weekly coumn in the The Lancashire Telegraph he has expressed concern that “wearing the full veil was bound to make better, positive relations between the two communities more difficult”.

Mr Straw said he had been mulling over the issue ever since a veiled woman attended his surgery and said she was pleased to meet him face to face at last.

He wrote: “The chance would be a fine thing, I thought to myself but did not say aloud.”.

The encounter led to thoughts about the “apparent incongruity between the signals which indicate common bonds. Above all, it was because I felt uncomfortable about talking to someone face-to-face who I could not see”.

He said this caused him some concern about the wider implications for community relations of “what is an increasing trend”.

“The value of a meeting, as opposed to a letter or phone call, is so that you can, almost literally, see what the other person means, and not just hear what they say,” said Mr Straw.

“So many of the judgments we all make about other people come from seeing their faces”.

Mr Straw said that he will ensure that a female member of staff is present before he would ask a woman to lift her veil. So far, he cannot recall a single occasion when the request has been refused.

“I thought a lot before raising this matter a year ago, and still more before writing this. But if not me, who? My concerns could be misplaced. But I think there is an issue here”.

Mr Straw, who won his seat with an 8,000 majority at the last election, enjoys a close relationship with mainstream Muslim groups in his Lancashire constituency.

Muslim leaders are on first name terms with their MP but his comments in the local newspaper have already caused disquiet.

Hamid Quereshi, chairman of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, said that Mr Straw’s request to women to lift their veils could only be justified on security or identity grounds.

He said: “Women believe that wearing it is God’s command. I think it is unnecessary for him to do this. I do not know what principle he is trying to establish.

“What is he really concerned about? If he thinks it is about community cohesion concerns, he is mistaken. There are thousands of things that we do together.

“This is not helpful. It has the potential to cause anger. He will get criticiasm from all quarters”.

Salim Mulla, a Muslim councillor representing the Queen’s Park ward, urged Mr Straw to “respect the decisions women make”.

Earlier this week Canon Chris Chivers, based at Blackburn Cathedral, said that more needed to be done to address problems posed by segregation in the former mill town.

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