Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- British Cabinet minister Jack Straw said he would rather Muslim women not wear full veils because the garment causes ``separation.''

``It's about the face. It's about how we relate to strangers,'' Straw said on BBC Radio 4 today. While not questioning Muslim women's right to wear veils, Straw said he's ``concerned about the implications of separation.''

A year after Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 London commuters, U.K. politicians are stepping up debate about the integration of the country's Islamic community. About 2 million Muslims live in the U.K., accounting for 3.4 percent of the population.

Straw, whose electoral constituency of Blackburn is home to about 25,000 Muslims, wrote yesterday in a weekly column in the Lancashire Telegraph newspaper that he has been mulling the issue since a fully veiled local woman came to see him in one of his regular one-on-one meetings with voters. He now asks women who come to see him in his office to remove their veils.

``I felt uncomfortable about talking to someone face-to-face who I could not see,'' Straw wrote. ``The value of a meeting, as opposed to a letter or a phone call, is so that you can, almost literally, see what the other person means.''

Straw said he understands why women wear veils and always makes sure a female member of his staff is present before asking a woman to lift her veil. He hasn't yet been refused.

``We're starting to have parallel communities coming and going separate ways, sliding past each other without communication and that's not good for the community as a whole,'' Straw said.

Muslim groups rejected the idea that veils impair communication or separate Muslims from others in Britain.

``His solution is laughable,'' Asghar Bukhari, a spokesman for the Muslim Public Affairs Committee of the U.K. said yesterday. Veils ``don't have anything to do'' with tensions between Muslims and other groups, he said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Deen in London at markdeen@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 6, 2006 08:21 EDT