Education (Non-religious Philosophical Convictions) Bill [HL]

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

2nd reading
Friday 3rd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I offer my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, on securing a Second Reading of her Bill. As we have heard from your Lordships, high-quality religious education is an important part of a rich curriculum and supporting pupils to understanding the value and traditions of Britain and other countries. I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark for eloquently making that point about our culture.

While I welcome the noble Baroness’s continued commitment to ensuring that RE remains at the forefront of discussions in this House, I must express reservations about this Bill on behalf of the Government. In doing so, I would like to clarify for your Lordships the Government’s policy on RE and how current provision already addresses, in the main, the Bill’s principal intentions.

The Bill seeks to introduce, as we have heard, an explicit requirement for schools in England, with the exception of voluntary aided schools with a religious character, to teach non-religious worldviews as part of their RE curricula. This is only right. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, said, there has undoubtedly been a shift in belief over the last decade. The 2021 census showed a 13 percentage-point decrease in the number of people who describe themselves as Christian, and a 12 percentage-point increase in the number who describe themselves as having “no religion”—although I must say that I am rather drawn to the definition given by the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, from Sister Christine, of religion being about love, but perhaps that is for another debate.

Nevertheless, Christianity remains the most common response in the census, and it is therefore appropriate that religious education in schools without a religious designation should continue to be, in the main, of a broadly or wholly Christian nature. The Government consider the Bill to be an unnecessary amendment to that, given that RE may already include the concepts of both religious beliefs and non-religious worldviews. In many cases, non-religious worldviews are integral to RE, and this is evident when looking at the contents of the department’s religious studies GCSE and A-level subject content specifications.

While the Government’s view is that RE is an important subject, we think it equally important that parents and older students are free to exercise their right of withdrawal. As such, a child or young person can be withdrawn for all or just part of their school’s RE curriculum without having to give a reason. It is permissible, therefore, for pupils to be withdrawn from all or some religious aspects of RE, while continuing to attend lessons on non-religious worldviews. For that reason, the Government do not think it appropriate or necessary to enforce the production and delivery of a discrete, parallel curriculum on non-religious worldviews for those who have been withdrawn from RE. A number of your Lordships raised the very important issues of individual liberty and tolerance of those of different convictions. Of course, that is covered in the wider school curriculum.

A number of your Lordships, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Burt and Lady Wilcox, and the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, referred to the situation in Wales. Let me clarify a couple of points that distinguish the situation in Wales from that in England. First, as noble Lords are well aware, Wales does not have an established church—in other words, a church recognised by law as the official church of the state and supported by civil authority. Secondly, my understanding—noble Lords will correct me if I am wrong—is that the Welsh Government, through the new legislation implemented in, I think, September last year, have removed the right for parents to withdraw their children from that education.

The Bill also represents a significant departure from the current Government policy on curriculum design and implementation. The Government believe that RE curricula should continue to be designed at a local level, for many of the reasons your Lordships raised earlier in this debate, whether this be through locally agreed syllabuses or by individual schools. Continuing with this model ensures that local demographics can be appropriately accounted for, including where this relates to non-religious worldviews.

It is the opinion of this Government that there is no need to amend the legislation surrounding the provision of religious education in schools, especially where this relates to the inclusion of non-religious worldviews in the curriculum, the provision of an alternative non-religious worldviews curriculum for those who withdraw from RE or the membership of SACREs. We know that most schools are already integrating non-religious worldviews into their RE provision, and that non-religious representation already exists on many SACREs across the country. We will continue to trust our schools to deliver high quality religious education that is reflective of all beliefs and inclusive of the local demographic.