Rental Properties: Smoke Alarms

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Harrison

Thursday 8th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As my noble friend acknowledges, the review includes electrical safety checks. As I said, it is comprehensive. We will reach a conclusion shortly.

[Lord Harrison (Lab)]

What conversations have the Government had with insurance companies, which are very much minded to reduce premiums given the extra safety and protection afforded to property by the installation of smoke alarms?

Atheists and Humanists: Contribution to Society

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Harrison

Thursday 25th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrison]

That this House takes note of the contribution of atheists and humanists to United Kingdom society.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, as other noble Lords are leaving the Chamber while the handover is going on, it is timely for me to remind your Lordships that the next debate, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, is also time-limited. The same number of speakers is listed on this debate as well, so with the exception of the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and my noble friend Lord Ahmad, all Back-Bench contributions are limited to seven minutes.

[Lord Harrison]

My Lords, today we speak up on behalf of the silent majority, for those of us who do not attend any place of worship, whether church, mosque or synagogue. It is a silent majority, whose full contribution to British society has perhaps been unsung for too long. In contrast, we find that religious voices are ever more present, and sometimes shrill, in the public square. However, because atheism is a philosophical viewpoint, arrived at individually and personally, we are not given to marching in the street chanting, “What do we want? Atheism! When do we want it? Now!”. As a humanist who senses that religion has neither rhyme nor reason, I believe that we should ensure that our needs and concerns are met and satisfied in that public square, as they are in the private armchair. For too long we have been silent, contemplative hermits in terms of our own cause.

Humanism is a non-religious ethical life stance based on reason, humanity, and a naturalistic view of the universe. As the non-religious proportion of the UK population increases, the contribution of humanists to British society also increases. While not all of those who are atheists would necessarily describe themselves as humanist, nevertheless a great many of those who are non-religious are essentially humanist in outlook. The increase in the proportion of the population which is non-religious is demonstrated not only by the 2011 census results, in which the non-religious element rose from 15% in the 2001 census to 25% in 2011, but also in the more recent British Social Attitudes survey published last year, which found that as many as 46% say that they do not belong to any religion.

Humanism is perhaps the default philosophical position for millions of people in the UK today, and millions of humanists in one way or another in their daily lives improve society by strengthening our democratic freedoms, involving themselves assiduously in charity work, increasing our body of scientific knowledge and enhancing the cultural and creative life of the United Kingdom.

The British Humanist Association is the national charity which works on behalf of non-religious people. Founded in 1896, it has more than 28,000 members and supporters and more than 90 local and special interest affiliates. The BHA campaigns for a secular state and on a range of ethical issues, puts forward the humanist viewpoint in public debate and lobbies the Government and parliamentarians. I am very pleased to see the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, in her place today, because she will recall that we managed to have a humanist amendment added to the same-sex marriage Bill.

The BHA also has a network of celebrants who conduct non-religious ceremonies which are attended by more than 250,000 people every year. Some BHA members also give up their time to provide pastoral support to non-religious people in hospitals, prisons and universities alongside the chaplaincy teams of those organisations. In my own borough of Camden that silent service of humanists has not percolated through to the NHS, which still believes that those of the non-faith tradition should be served by chaplains of all kinds of faiths.

The BHA campaigns for secularism, the separation of church and state and an end to all religious privileges. The work of humanists and atheists in campaigning for secularism has helped to make the UK a more tolerant, free and equal society. In a secular society, the state does not favour any particular belief system. Members of all religious faiths, as well as those who do not have a religious faith, stand equal before the law. A society in which everyone has equal rights and minorities do not suffer from discrimination is a tolerant and democratic one.

Humanists spent decades campaigning for the abolition of the blasphemy laws, which was finally achieved in 2008. Blasphemy laws place religiously-motivated restrictions on freedom of speech and should have no place in a democratic society. Humanists have had to campaign for personal freedoms in modern society that we now take for granted such as the legalisation of homosexuality, the ability to access contraception and women’s right to access safe abortion facilities. We wish the Church of England well in its ambition finally to have women represented on the Bishops’ Benches.

We campaign for a fully secular state, for the disestablishment of the Church of England and the removal of the Bishops from the House of Lords. We know that there are stirrings within the Anglican Church from people who take the same view. Perhaps it would be helpful to have a more equal distribution of those who profess religious faiths and those who do not—as with the BHA or the National Secular Society—on your Lordships’ Benches.

The BHA also campaigns to end discrimination on the grounds of religion and belief, and it welcomes, in particular, the recent decision by the Girl Guides to drop the reference to God in their membership oath. The BHA also campaigns on ethical issues, such as the right to an assisted death for the permanently incapacitated and incurably suffering. Humanists try to achieve a more cohesive society by campaigning against social division in the education system and, indeed, the social engineering of church schools. We believe that children and young people should be free of religious indoctrination and have the space to develop their own beliefs. We would welcome the church intervening in the clearly odd matter of parents who apply to church schools when they are clearly doing so simply to have access to those schools and not as a profession of faith.

Humanists and atheists are sometimes accused of being intolerant of religious believers and being unwilling to work with them to build a better society; however, we support the Fair Admissions Campaign, which calls for an end to religious discrimination in admissions to state-funded faith schools, and the Accord Coalition. We work with the Christian think tank, Ekklesia, British Muslims for Secular Democracy, the Hindu Academy and Rabbi Jonathan Romain MBE. The BHA also campaigns against the teaching of creationism and in favour of the teaching of evolution. We call for an improved sex and relationships education. Humanists also call for an end to the requirement for collective worship in schools and for the reform of religious education, so that pupils are given the opportunity to explore different religions and non-religious world views, including, of course, humanism. Some BHA members are already working with the Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education and local authorities.

It is often claimed that the religious are more generous and socially engaged than the non-religious. However, research by the Government, published in 2011, shows that the non-religious are just as likely as religious people to participate in civil society. The Citizenship Survey of April 2010 to March 2011 was published by the Department for Communities and Local Government. It looked at civic engagement and formal volunteering in that period and found that there was no statistically significant difference in participation between those with no religion, at 56%, and Christians, at 58%.

Among the BHA’s most significant supporters from the world of science are its president, the physicist, broadcaster and author, Professor Jim Al-Khalili; the biologist and author of The God Delusion, Professor Richard Dawkins, a vice-president; physicist, Professor Brian Cox; geneticist Steve Jones; the former scientific officer to the Government, Professor Sir David King; and science writers such as Simon Singh and Doctor Adam Rutherford. We are all familiar with Francis Crick and the contributions of Bertrand Russell and the novelist EM Forster.

Humanist ceremonies, including weddings, funerals and naming ceremonies, are becoming more and more popular, and the BHA’s trained and accredited celebrants conduct ceremonies that are attended by more than 250,000 people each year. Humanist ceremonies are tailored to the lives of the people involved and are based on shared human values, but with no religious elements. This aspect of the BHA’s work is very important in a society in which a growing proportion of the population is non-religious.

I shall make some closing comments on a number of areas where I believe we humanists can aid society and improve its general workings. We could contribute, for instance, on “Thought for the Day”, on the “Today” programme, from which we are currently excluded. I think that this is an error; we are able, as others are, to provide thoughts for the day. We are told that all other broadcasting is sufficient to absorb that which we may want to say. There are, however, true problems for atheists and humanists that should be properly addressed, knotty problems that we have to confront. I believe that, in fairness, that should happen. I also point to religious broadcasting that is of a better nature, such as the “Sunday” programme, which my wife and I listen to regularly, especially when chaired by the excellent Edward Stourton, who never allows his Roman Catholicism to stand in the way of his forensic journalistic instincts. I was heartened to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, in a recent “Sunday” appearance, speak up against the persecution of atheists in Indonesia and Pakistan. I was grateful to her for doing so. The noble Baroness has gone further by changing the name of her all-party parliamentary group to reflect beliefs as well as religion.

There are also other ways in which humanists can contribute to the general weal, some of which will help our religious colleagues directly. The chair of the Historic Churches All-Party Group, Frank Dobson, is an avowed atheist. In 2004, I led a debate in your Lordships’ House asking Her Majesty’s Government what contribution they had made to the maintenance of the architectural heritage of England’s churches and their view on combining the function of churches as places of worship with other ways of serving local communities. I give one recent example from Chester, where we in the Labour Party recently selected our prospective parliamentary candidate for the general election in our local arts and craft Church of England, whose bells my wife and I listen to every Sunday and practice Thursday. We may be atheists but we do not see why the church should have all the best buildings. I note that today the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury has said that he wants to use the church estate to promote credit unions in churches to oppose payday loans.

I conclude on a sad note and I ask the Minister if he will take this back. The Armed Forces Humanist Association is being prevented from attending the Cenotaph ceremony in November, and I and others have been campaigning for this for a long time. Last week, I received a reply from the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner of Kimble, which tells us that we cannot be represented there. We do not want to lay a wreath or anything like that; we simply want to be there. The noble Lord wrote that there is a very real issue of available space for accommodating any extra participants at the designated place where the ceremony takes place, which could impact on the precision with which the ceremony must successfully operate, despite the fact that the Zoroastrians are represented at that ceremony. Thus spake Zorathustra, but thus quaked the Government when they were asked to represent the whole of British society. I think, hope and believe that this debate illustrates that we, the humanists and atheists, have a very real contribution to make.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Harrison

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I accept that point. Forgive me if I was suggesting anything that was not respectful of what humanists are seeking to achieve. I absolutely understand the point that the noble Baroness is making. I was trying to explain that some people who follow a religious faith might argue that because humanists, although belonging to a belief organisation, are not religious, they have some opportunity to adapt a civil ceremony in a way that a religious person would not be able to.

[Lord Harrison]

The amendment sets out the conditions whereby it would be permissible in the particular case of the BHA. It should be recognised that that would be a barrier to other groups which might describe themselves as religious—as has been wrongly suggested in the press—such as the Jedi.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I understand the point that the noble Lord is making. As I said when I began, there is quite a lot for me to cover in responding to this issue. I beg the noble Lord’s indulgence to allow me to go through my response. I assure him that I will cover everything, giving this matter the justice and the seriousness that it deserves. The point I was trying to make, which has been mentioned in different debates over the past few weeks in the context of this Bill, is that, for a range of people who want to get married, not just humanists, not everyone is able to have a religious ceremony or the ceremony that they desire. For instance, we heard only the other night, when the noble Lord, Lord Martin, was speaking, about a Scottish MP, a member of the Church of Scotland, who was therefore not able to marry in St Mary Undercroft and had to go to a register office first. I am simply making the point to the noble Lord that things are not so straightforward. It is not the case that everything is okay in one scenario and different in another. However, let me move on. I was just trying to make that point.

On my original point about the Bill and allowing same-sex marriage, although it might seem a counterintuitive thing for me to say, clearly for us to allow same-sex marriage to take place is a big change, but we are able to make that change in the framework of existing marriage law.

[Lord Harrison]

We are proposing this under the existing requirement in Section 27 of the Marriage Act 1949. We did so on the advice of colleagues from the church and also from Ministers in order to ensure that this would not require major change.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I will cover that point in the course of my response.

The point still stands—I will explain why in a moment—that in order to allow organisations to marry in the way that is covered in this amendment, although it seems like a small change, it requires a change in existing marriage law that has wider implications for our system of regulation of marriage law in England and Wales. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, and other noble Lords have referred to the contribution that my right honourable friend the Attorney-General made during the debate on Report in the other place when he made it clear that if the amendment that was being debated at that time was passed, it would make the Bill incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, is broader in scope and therefore does not raise the concern that the Attorney-General raised during the debate in the other place. However, at that time and consistently, the Government have been clear that the proposals put forward by the British Humanist Association have wider implications for marriage law. The Government are concerned because of those wider implications. There has been a lot of focus on the Attorney-General’s response to that specific amendment put forward on Report, and how that would have made the Bill at that time incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. However, that was not the only issue that the Government have raised, and continue to raise, about this proposal. I will explain all this in the course of my response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

Very briefly, before I finally sit down, of course everybody would support humanist marriages. The point is—please let me finish making this point—that it would require a change in law that would have implications that have not been fully thought through. That all said, having listening to the debate today, I will of course report back to my ministerial colleagues and ensure that they reflect further on the points made in this debate.

[Lord Harrison]

My Lords, I am in severe danger of letting the nice side of my character come to the fore at this conclusion to the debate. I sincerely thank those from all sides who have risen to support the amendment. I thank the right reverend Prelate for his constructive approach. I invite him to have discussions with me and the British Humanist Association himself, rather than sending an official.

I have watched the Minister struggle. I would like to struggle with her. I want to get round a table and discuss this matter and find the solution that this House most clearly needs. In the mean time, I beg leave—and give notice that I shall bring it back on Report—to withdraw this amendment, showing the nice side of my character to the whole House.