Religious Education in Modern Britain

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered religious education in modern Britain.

It is good to be here serving under your chairmanship, Dame Maria. Some families—sadly they are a minority, I am sure—will deliver religious education to their younger members, who will grow up with an understanding of whichever faith the family adheres to. But the majority of children, I suspect, learn something of religion at school.

The point is important, because a rounded religious education helps our young people to appreciate the place of religion in our culture, and supports them as they develop their own world view. RE will help them take their place in society. It will support them to be effective and engaged in both the workplace and the wider community, and allow them to critically consider the fundamental questions of life, God, meaning and purpose on the basis of which they will live their lives in modern Britain. It will enable them to learn from centuries of reflection on those questions.

I recall attending a parents’ meeting when my daughter was at junior school. The headteacher said that he regarded school and RE lessons as taking young people to the threshold of faith. That phrase has always stuck with me. It is a valuable one, and I would like our schools to adhere to it.

Life in modern Britain demands a knowledge not just of Christianity but of other faiths. A knowledge of the Christian faith is important not just as an end in itself but as a way of understanding much western culture, art and music. Many of the phrases used in everyday language come from the Bible. We frequently hear sports commentators refer to a “David and Goliath struggle”; if Grimsby Town, which I support, were drawn against Manchester City, that would certainly be appropriate. There are others, such as “the writing is on the wall” and “the salt of the Earth”, and two in particular that we politicians should particularly note: “how the mighty have fallen” and “a house divided against itself cannot stand”.

If we accept the importance of RE, and we accept that it is in school that most of our young people will learn of the importance of religion in our society, we must ask whether our schools are providing RE to a high standard. I googled “law on school worship”, which referred me to the gov.uk website, which then referred me to guidance note 1/94—“94” indicating the year it was published. Is guidance from 28 years ago still relevant to modern Britain, or should it be updated? The guidance states:

“All maintained schools must provide religious education and daily collective worship for all registered pupils and promote their spiritual, moral and cultural development.

Local agreed RE syllabuses for county schools and equivalent grant-maintained schools must in future reflect the fact that religious traditions in the country are in the main Christian whilst taking account of the teaching and practices of other principal religions. Syllabuses must be periodically reviewed.

Collective worship in county schools and equivalent grant-maintained schools must be wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character, though not distinctive of any particular Christian denomination.”

If, as the guidance states, all schools must provide that, what are the Government doing to ensure that they do? Way back when, I attended Welholme Primary and Havelock schools in Grimsby, and we indeed had a daily assembly with prayers and a hymn. Around a third of my class also attended Sunday school, as I did at Grimsby’s All Saints’ church, which is appropriate to mention on All Saints’ day. Adding those who attended All Saints’ to those who went to local Methodist and Catholic churches, we appreciate that the vast majority of young children in the area attended Sunday school and got a good grounding in Christian teachings.

Let me refer again to the Government website and the collective worship in schools document. The section headed “Government aims” states:

“The Government is concerned that insufficient attention has been paid explicitly to the spiritual, moral and cultural aspects of pupils’ development, and would encourage schools to address how the curriculum and other activities might best contribute to this crucial dimension of education.”

That was the view of the Conservative Government in 1994. Does it remain the view of the Government? I trust the Minister will clarify that.

I suggest that we have a postcode lottery in the provision of RE across the UK. Some of our children receive a comprehensive, well-taught religious education; unfortunately, others receive merely a tokenistic level of teaching. According to the Christian Institute, the Department for Education school workforce census 2021 demonstrated a worrying trend in schools—reporting on other curriculum subjects, but not on RE. That trend was higher in schools following the agreed syllabus and academies without a religious character, at 23% and 22% respectively, while the figure for schools with a religious character was only 5%. One school in five reported offering zero hours of RE for year 11, in a breach of their statutory responsibility. Just under a third—27.4%—of academies without a religious character reported providing zero hours of RE to year 11. About 10% of all schools reported zero hours in years 7, 8 and 9, on average. The figure with respect to provision in academies without a religious character is significant.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for bringing this important debate to this place.

Yesterday was a day of mixed emotions for me as it was the end of De La Salle School in my Liverpool constituency of West Derby: the school was handed over to a non-faith academy. I want to thank the De La Salle Brothers for their fantastic service to West Derby and nearly 100 years of Catholic education, which positively changed the lives of so many of my constituents. That ended yesterday.

While I will work closely with the academy to ensure that our children continue to get excellent education, does the hon. Member agree that it is crucial that religious literacy is improved? Religious literacy is so important at a time when persecution and the limiting of religious freedoms have increased globally. It is also crucial to maintain the independence and integrity of the subject in schools of a religious character. In Catholic schools in particular, the academic discipline of RE is based on theological teaching, which is already vigorous and has been developed and refined over centuries.

[Dame Maria Miller (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members that it is courteous to those present for the debate to ask questions, not make statements. If any Member wishes to make a speech, please catch my eye.