Religious Education

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Alderdice]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Commission on Religious Education Religion and Worldviews: the way forward, published in September; and whether they intend to publish any response.

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, during much of 2016 and 2017, I spent time conducting a review for my colleagues in the Liberal Democrats on the challenge of the inclusion of racial and ethnic minorities in politics and, indeed, in the party. One thing that became very clear to me was that it was a problem of culture much more than of regulations or institutional arrangements. In other words, when people came to the UK from other places with other sets of views, there was a challenge for them as they became part of this community but also for the community to engage and involve people with other perspectives.

During that work, I was helped by one of my colleagues, Kishan Devani, who pointed out to me that an important piece of work was ongoing on religion and worldviews. When that was launched here in Parliament on 12 September, I went along to hear what was being said. I then read the report, and I was struck by how the fundamental principles behind that report were exactly what I had had to work on in my report for the Liberal Democrats.

The report is a thoughtful piece of work. In fact, arguably, it is the most substantial piece of work on the issue of religious education in our country since the 1970s. There was of course legislation in the 1980s, but that came from the process of digesting work done in the previous decade. I think that much the same will happen with this report because it addresses some fundamentally important issues. If it has a problem in how it presents itself, it is that goes into such detail that it is not difficult to find specific things that people might disagree with because it has been exhaustive in producing a set of propositions.

I should like to draw back from that and look at the fundamental principles behind the report and its intentions because they are of enormous importance. When I tabled this Question for Short Debate, the Government had not responded. The Secretary of State, Damian Hinds, responded last week. Sadly, it is a very negative and disappointing response because in many ways it fails to take up some of the most important issues identified in the report.

First, let me say a bit about what it seems to me that the report addresses. If we think about the question of what religious education is about, it is not the old view of religious instruction. We have clearly got beyond the point—this has been legally established by the courts—where it is simply education in one religious perspective. In our country, it is absolutely clear that we must take a wider perspective into consideration.

A man who is rather a hero of mine, an Irish theologian, dead many years ago, described religion in the following way. He said that religion is the most ultimate, real and compelling form in which we can see the social or universal relationships and obligations of our lives. In the case of those who may be called non-religious, it is necessary only to invert the form of the sentence: the most ultimate, real and compelling form in which they can see their social or universal relationships and obligations is their true religion.

In other words, religion is about how we understand and engage with meaning and that which transcends any particular subject or element of our lives, nation or state. It is how we understand our whole way of being in the world. That does not depend on being a member of any particular religious family. What is crucial in education is the drawing together, the giving to young people of opportunity, encouragement and education to understand meaning, purpose and their engagement with the universe in which we live.

To deny that to young people, not to provide it adequately to them, is to leave them with an education which is a little bit of this, little bit of that and a little bit of another thing without any sense that it can be drawn together in a meaningful way. Whether that is in something that we would traditionally have regarded as religion or what we would regard as a non-religious viewpoint, it is, nevertheless, one that helps young people to develop a worldview, a way of thinking about and engaging with the world. It is not just something that they think about but their whole way of being in the world that they have. When the Minister responds by saying that it is about their getting knowledge of the values and traditions of Britain and other countries and therefore fostering mutual respect and tolerance, that is, for me, the expression of a generation for whom religious education was a failure, so that at the highest levels of the country, people fundamentally do not understand what religion is about and its role in the human condition.

That is not surprising, because we now find that in 2016 a large percentage of schools—33%—offered no RE at all at key stage 4, up from 22% the year before. Those schools are in breach of the law, yet the Government seem to show no interest or concern about it. Why should it be that in what is a law-abiding country, teachers—those who set down the boundaries, rules and ways of understanding and behaving for our children—should be so happy, at the level of the individual teacher, the school or the board of governors, to disregard what is absolutely clear in the law?

The answer is because they do not believe in it. It is not because there is not enough money, so when the Minister says, “We will put in a bit of money this way and that way”, it does not address the fundamental problem. The problem is that people do not say, “I believe that. That is important to me. I want to convey this sense of understanding to the next generation”. Why is that? I think it is because many people have gone beyond the traditional religious ways of looking at things, not to have no worldview but to have a different perspective with which many of the organised structures of religion have not kept up.

That is not a reason to dismiss religious education, throw it aside, allow it to fall into disrepair or disuse or to deny our children the encouragement to understand the way that, historically and in different parts of the world, we have struggled to understand what our life, our lives and society are about. It is not to deny that chance to say, “Here are a whole lot of ways people have tried to do it and it is really important that you study it so that you understand that where history, geography, physics and maths all fit together into some kind of perspective that has meaning for us and helps to guide us when we begin to make important decisions, personally and socially in our lives”. When we come to the ministerial response, there is no sense of that at all. It is, “We’ll put a little bit more money into it”, “Actually we do not have time”, or “What I really need to do is to reduce the workload of overburdened teachers”.

We should be asking why people have lost a sense of passion about this. Teachers do not go into the profession to make a load of money or for an easy life. They go into it because they have a passionate belief in conveying to the next generation those things which are important to them and our wider community.

When it comes to the idea that religion is about conveying the culture of our country, the whole point of the Christian faith that I hold is that it is not nationalistic, it goes beyond that and says, “No, it is not just about this country”. My goodness, the person at the beginning of it was nothing to do with this country and was pretty sceptical about the nationalism of his own. To say such things tells me that there is a failure of religious education not just in this generation but for the past two or three generations—a failure which means that people at the highest level do not really understand what it is about.

Why is that important? It is because when we deal with other people in other places or with people in our society for whom this is very important, leading, thoughtful, decision-making people do not understand what they are dealing with. They make the wrong decisions when it comes to dealing with fundamentalism, terrorism and the politics of other countries, because, as the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury said in a debate on Friday, a majority of people in this country may not have religious perspectives, but if you look globally, it is quite the opposite and is a growing phenomenon in the world. We must therefore understand that we must take it seriously.

We have just come from voting in a Division—successfully, I understand, for those of us who voted for the amendment—about our concern about the way that the Government are handling relations with the Muslim community. Parliament is sufficiently concerned about that to ask for a review of Prevent. That is because there is not proper and sufficient understanding. When it comes to young people and their mental health, it is not about them being religious, it is about them being encouraged to have a coherent view of what makes meaning in their lives.

The report gives an opportunity not for the Government to say yes or no about legislation but, rather, to say, “This is a really worthwhile attempt to address the question. We will sit down and discuss with you your concerns and ours about how we make it better for the next generation”, not, “I am sorry, we are too busy, we do not have the time, we do not want to overburden teachers. Here is a little bit of money. Please go away”. It is far too important for that. If the Government do not deal with it and instead pay attention to a small number of stakeholders, some of whom are fundamentalist in their known perspectives, I guarantee the Minister, the department and the Government that this issue will not go away and those who are determined to promote it will not go away. There will be a substantial campaign by people who say, “These are important issues for our generation and the next, and we will continue to press them”.

I hope that the Minister will take that message back to his colleagues, particularly the Secretary of State. This is important and it is not going to go away.