Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group—I guess I am on my own today. Given the scope of the Bill and the number of speakers, I will restrict myself to issues of inclusion and community cohesion within our schools.

I have twice introduced to the Chamber a Bill to repeal the legal imposition of collective worship in all publicly funded schools. I first introduced it more than three years ago, when it passed the Lords but fell in the other place due to lack of time. I introduced it again three months ago, and it has passed Second Reading. I am hopeful, but I fear that time may not be on my side again.

The amendments that I and others intend to lay before the House will work to introduce inclusivity policy and to get rid of the bizarre position where the UK is the only sovereign western democracy to enforce mandatory worship. The School Standards and Framework Act requires all state schools that are not of a religious nature to hold daily acts of collective worship that must be of a wholly or mainly Christian nature. Children cannot withdraw themselves from prayers without parental consent. This contravenes children’s rights under the Human Rights Act and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Mandatory collective worship is by its very nature illiberal and divisive. It imposes religious activity in a blanket manner. Even in schools that do not have a religious character, it forces parents to choose between allowing their children to be part of school assemblies that are so valuable for the school community or ostracising them, leaving them in corridors and classrooms with little or nothing to do. I believe that it would be far better for school assemblies to be inclusive, strengthening collective school communities and contributing to schools’ spiritual, moral and cultural development without prejudice towards a single faith.

Similarly, I argue that we should use the opportunity of a schools Bill to ensure that religious education is inclusive of the beliefs and worldview of all our population, including the beliefs of non-religious people—who are the second-largest group by religious affiliation after Christianity, represent one-third of the population and are growing. Case law from a decade ago, specifically Fox v Secretary of State for Education, requires non-religious belief systems, such as humanism, to be treated with equal regard in RE provision. Our laws should reflect this.

There is much to welcome here, and I look forward to helping make our children’s education wider and more inclusive.