Education Bill

Baroness Turner of Camden Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Avebury in the amendment he has just moved. As he has pointed out, the law as it stands is the legacy of a society unrecognisable from the pluralistic Britain today where citizens hold a wide variety of religious beliefs—including no religious belief. This Bill presents an opportunity to reform an outdated and overly prescriptive law. The amendments, which I think are reasonable and moderate, are intended to offer greater freedom and choice in regard to worship in schools.

While parents have the right to withdraw their child from collective worship, for many parents this is not a satisfactory option as they feel it is unfair to exclude and separate their children from classmates; children often do not realise while they are being excluded, so it is not always a very good solution. Children themselves have a right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion under both Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 14.1 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is not for the state to impose worship on children, regardless of whether the school they are attending has a religious ethos or not—particularly if it does not have a religious ethos. The amendments would at least ensure that conducting an act of worship was made optional for schools without a religious designation. Amendment 61B would make the attendance at worship optional for children.

Amendment 61C would lower the age at which pupils may withdraw themselves from collective worship—from the sixth form as it is now to a default age of 15. That would at least bring the law closer to the advice of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Our arguments for older pupils’ self-withdrawal were accepted in principle by the previous Government, but they set the age limit at sixth-form pupils. The amendment uses age 15 as a default age, but does allow this to be overridden in exceptional cases. That seems to me to be a more reasonable age than sticking to the sixth form as provided for in current legislation.

Particularly in multicultural areas, the holding of any kind of religious activity is bound to upset someone. We have been informed of at least one head teacher who resigned because of being unable to reconcile the demands of the parents of many religions on the one hand and the law on the other. The amendments would not impinge on schools of a religious character. We are simply seeking in the amendments of the noble Lord to try to ensure that there is in future a proper and reasonable choice in regard to worship in schools. I commend these amendments to the House.

[Baroness Trumpington]

My Lords, I was married to the headmaster of a Methodist boarding school for many years, including during the 1960s, which was not exactly an easy time for any teacher to be associated with boys—or girls for that matter. There was daily chapel for all the pupils and I remember that, following a governors meeting, to which of course I was not invited, some of the governors came up to me and asked whether I favoured having non-compulsory chapel every day. I replied—and I have not changed my view since—that it did not matter if pupils were bored, did not like going to chapel or were not interested in religious matters at the age of 15, 16 or perhaps even 17. That daily event gave each pupil a background to which they could return in later life. It was very important to have that little base of knowledge of which they could make use when they had really grown up, and I hold that view today.