Religious Education

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, political elites frequently wring their hands and complain that all our problems would be solved if only religious adherents shared their own world view that God does not exist and nor should religions. GK Chesterton mocked this, remarking:

“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything”.


Notwithstanding the crimes perpetrated in the name of religion, the Committee should remember that the great mass murderers of the 20th century—Hitler, Stalin and Mao—were united in their world view in hating and persecuting religion and, according to Rudolph Rummel, were responsible for at least 100 million deaths.

Unpalatable as it may be to some, around 84% of the world’s population has religious beliefs. There are 2.4 billion Christians, around 30% of the global population, and as the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, told us earlier, that number has been increasing. Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s courageous foreign affairs correspondent, was right to say that if you want to understand the world you have to understand religion. The ultimate paradox would be to counter a decline in religious literacy by teaching less religion. RE is not about enforcing a belief in God: it is about respecting and taking seriously those who do. This cannot be elided into social sciences, reduced to a purely human or theoretical phenomenon, or a methodologically agnostic, neutral approach to religion.

Lesslie Newbigin described Christian faith as public truth, confident that its message is true—based on evidence—and offering hope to humanity. As well as understanding religious faith as transcendent belief by which millions of people live, it is also about understanding religion as a human right, as defined by Article 18 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the right to believe, not to believe, or to change your belief.

Religious literacy and understanding of faith and no faith, the honouring of difference, the determination to understand one another and to reconsider bigotry, prejudice and caricatures, must surely be at the heart of how we form tomorrow’s citizens. This will not be achieved by forcing the dilution of religious education—quite the reverse. Damian Hinds, was, therefore, right to tell the admirable chair of the commission, Dr John Hall, that he had heard “concerns” that making statutory the inclusion of world views risked diluting the teaching of RE. The future flourishing of RE will best be achieved by strengthening and adequately resourcing the existing legal arrangements for the Agreed Syllabus Conference, and by supporting the Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education.

As an instinctive opponent of one-size-fits-all, centralised command and control, I much prefer the use of a syllabus agreed locally between faith communities, teachers and local authorities. This is about ensuring that children will be taught religious knowledge in terms of how religions understand themselves, not as how the non-religious would wish them to understand themselves. The report’s proposed abolition of the LAS would mean that the guaranteed contribution to and ownership of local RE by local faith leaders would end. A place at the table, with proper accountability, is a far better approach than telling faith communities that they are no longer welcome. For many, religion is not just about learning a subject, it is about a framework by which to live. Excluding faith communities from the proposed new national body, and with no requirement for the new overseers to be conversant with particular religions or faith communities, is quite unacceptable, and could be deeply divisive.

Government could, however, iron out some glaring inconsistencies by ensuring, for instance, that the legal obligations set out in the 1988 Education Act are actually met—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice.

While recognising the important contribution that faith makes to our shared values, we disincentivise the teaching of high-quality RE by not including it in the English Baccalaureate. I am sorry the department has no plans to review this, but I at least hope to hear more positive news about the provision of extra teacher training.

Here are three responses to the report that we should hear this evening with some concern. The Board of Deputies of British Jews calls it “fundamentally flawed”, saying that it,

“might be seen as an attempt by those hostile to faith to push their agenda of undermining rigour in religious education at a time when faith literacy could not be more important”.

The Board of Deputies says that recommendations 1 to 4 are profoundly contentious and dismantle an important part of the Church-state settlement from 1944, 1988 and 1996.

The Catholic Education Service agrees and argues that the quality of religious education is not enhanced or improved by teaching less religion. It says,

“the scope of the subject”,

will become “so wide” and potentially “nondescript” that it would,

“lose all academic value and integrity”,

and potentially depress religious literacy and understanding at a time when persecution of religious freedom has increased globally.

The Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education also expresses disappointment. It says,

“the report paints an overwhelmingly negative picture of the current state of RE”.

It insists that RE in the UK is,

“the envy of the rest of Europe, if not the world”,

and suggests some very good ways of improving even further the teaching of RE, which I have sent to the Minister.

In his letter to Dr Hall, the Secretary of State, Damian Hinds, says:

“I have … concluded that now is not the time to begin these reforms”.


I agree with him, but I also hope he will come forward with positive proposals for strengthening the existing framework.