Education Bill

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Avebury]

61A: After Clause 29, insert the following new Clause—
“Collective worship
(1) Section 70 of SSFA 1998 (requirements relating to collective worship) is amended as follows.
(2) For subsection (1) substitute—
“(1) Subject to section 71—
(a) each pupil in attendance at a foundation or voluntary school of a religious character shall on each school day attend an act of collective worship;(b) community, foundation or voluntary schools which are not of a religious character and Academies that are not religiously designated may hold acts of collective worship at the discretion of the governors.(1A) Governors should be under an obligation to consider representations made to them by pupils and the parents of pupils as to whether or not schools or Academies hold acts of collective worship under subsection (1)(b).”
(3) In subsection (2) for “community, foundation or voluntary school” substitute “foundation or voluntary school of a religious character”.
(4) In subsection (3) for “required” substitute “permitted”.
(5) In paragraphs 1 to 4 of Schedule 20 to SSFA 1998 (collective worship) for “required” substitute “permitted”.”

[Lord Avebury]

I declare an interest as an honorary associate of the National Secular Society, to which I am greatly indebted for its advice on the amendments. First, I must thank the Minister and the Bill team for the time and efforts that they have devoted to correspondence and meetings on the collective worship issue since we discussed it in Committee three months ago—although there has been no meeting of minds since we began this process.

The Minister's main argument for the retention of this provision is that it is a long-standing school tradition. That is indeed so. It goes back at least as long as the Education Act 1944 and, as far as I know, even further than that. That underlines the fact that England is a very different society today from what it was towards the end of the Second World War. Eighteen per cent of the population now reports having no religion. Of the 72 per cent who identify themselves as Christians, fewer than one-third say that they actively practice their religion; that falls to just over one in five among those aged 16 to 29. The number of people who attend church at least once a month has declined every year from 2004 onwards. Even more telling, the number of confirmations has slumped from 140,000 in 1950 to 25,000 in 2009.

It is time for the long-standing tradition which no longer reflects the beliefs of more than a tiny fraction of the people to be jettisoned. The Minister goes on to say that the act of collective worship makes a valuable contribution to the spiritual and moral development of all young people and that that view is shared by many parents who still expect their children to understand the meaning of worship. That children should learn the moral and ethical standards which are common to mankind is unarguable, but that they should be linked to particular rituals based on obeisance to a supernatural being for which there is no scientific evidence lessens the respect and credibility of the standards themselves.

Humankind should have advanced to the stage where moral principles should be seen as essential in themselves, without the need to be reinforced by threats or rewards from above. We need kindness, compassion, toleration, right speech, action and livelihood so that we can live in harmony with each other and mitigate the unsatisfactoriness of the human condition. The ills that we suffer are the consequences of neglecting those truths, not because we have failed to pay respect to God or Allah.

That is not to say that if a majority of parents still want to have an act of worship at the beginning of the school day, their wishes should be ignored, but the converse is also true. If the majority would prefer that morals be taught without an accompanying religious ritual, they should be allowed to have their way.

In a poll commissioned by the BBC in September, 64 per cent of parents questioned said that their children did not attend daily worship and 70 per cent of them said that they were not in favour of enforcing the law which prescribes that act. The most recent Ofsted report on collective worship eight years ago found that 40 per cent of the schools inspected did not comply with the legal requirements and that in the remainder there were tensions and difficulties. It states that few secondary schools met fully the legal requirements for collective worship. Indeed, detailed examination of the evidence from 96 full inspections revealed that not a single school complied fully with the letter of the law. Revealingly, one school in Greater London was highlighted where, instead of having to exercise their legal right to withdraw their children from worship, parents were asked to opt in, resulting in 800 of the 900 pupils withdrawing from collective worship.

It is no wonder that Ofsted has not returned to the subject since then. It was already embarrassing enough to have to reveal such widespread non-compliance with the law, and if a similar inquiry was conducted today, no doubt the finding would be even more remarkable. In 2004, David Bell, then head of Ofsted, abandoned asking inspectors to take provision for worship into account in their reports after running into what he called a firestorm of protest from schools over the issue. He claimed that 76 per cent of secondary schools were failing to provide the daily worship. The Minister said that where schools’ non-compliance with a statutory duty is considered to be having a negative impact on pupils' spiritual or moral, social and cultural development, inspectors will reflect this in their assessment of the school. The fact that none has done so in the last eight years must indicate that inspectors are unanimous in concluding that the absence of worship has not had a negative effect on pupils’ development.

An analysis of SACRE reports undertaken by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in 2004 similarly found that compliance with legal requirements for the daily act of collective worship was “a significant problem” for secondary schools. They reported a sense of impotence, as there appeared to be neither any way of ensuring compliance nor of changing the law. There was a common concern that having unworkable statutory requirements puts schools in an impossible position.

We have ignored this situation for too long. As far back as 1994, a National Association of Head Teachers survey of 2,346 schools found that seven out of 10 heads said that they were unable to satisfy a requirement to hold a daily act of Christian worship in their schools. The NAHT stated that,

“schools cannot be expected to accept responsibility for promoting daily religious observance when parents themselves do not practise it” .

A member of the association’s executive went further, saying:

“The law is being flouted. We are living a lie and the nation is living a lie”.

Without the ability to opt out of worship head teachers, acting in the best interests of their pupils, are being forced to act outside the law. Despite this, obviously there has been a high level of non-compliance, particularly in community secondary schools, for the best part of 20 years.

Such widespread flouting of these outdated and discriminatory obligations brings the law itself into disrepute. The first of these amendments proposes therefore that governors should be free not to hold acts of collective worship, taking into account representations made to them on the matter by pupils and their parents. This will enable us to comply with the spirit of both Article 18 ICCPR and Article 9 ECHR on freedom of thought, conscience and religion, which are violated by ramming worship down the throats of non-deist pupils in community schools.

There would still be acts of collective worship in schools where the majority of parents and pupils want them. And the second amendment—Amendment 61B—makes these acts optional so that the minority of pupils who do not believe in worship are not forced to attend them. The legal requirement for pupils to take part in collective worship on every school day is a clear breach of young people’s rights under not only the ICCPR and the ECHR but also under Article 14.1 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. If my noble friend cannot defend the imposition of religious behaviour on a child who disagrees with it, he has no option but to accept this amendment.

The third amendment, Amendment 61C, is an alternative to the second, and less satisfactory in that it extends the opt-out from collective worship available to sixth-form pupils at mainstream schools and maintained special schools only to pupils with sufficient maturity, understanding and intelligence to make an informed decision about whether to withdraw themselves. That was the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights which pointed out that the UK is under an obligation to assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting him or her and to give those views due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.

This obligation finds expression in UK law in the concept of Gillick competence, according to which a child should be treated as legally competent to make their own decisions if they have “sufficient maturity and intelligence” to understand the nature and implications of their decision.

I do not imagine for a moment that the Minister will be able to accept any of these amendments, knowing from our correspondence that he is not prepared to give an inch. In any case he will be on a tight rein from the Secretary of State, who showed his colours when he wrote in the Catholic Herald that Catholic schools should avoid “unsympathetic meddling” by secularists if they converted to academies. So even if he was convinced by the arguments, my noble friend could not make the smallest concession. Recognising this, but respecting my noble friend as someone who is fair-minded and rational, I ask him to seek the views of teachers, parents and pupils on the reforms that we are debating today, and to come back with amendments of his own at Third Reading if he finds that my arguments are overwhelmingly endorsed by those who are being forced to take part in rituals they do not agree with.

By all means continue the valuable tradition that assembly is a time for considering the moral and ethical values of our civilisation—and for emphasising in particular the values of inclusion, tolerance and respect mentioned by my noble friend in his letter. Let us do that in a way that is itself inclusive and not one that requires children and teachers to participate in behaviour that excludes many of them at the beginning of the school day. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, for their characteristic clarity in putting their arguments. However, as someone who frequently attends collective worship in both religious foundations and community schools, I have to say that the picture they have presented of our education system today is simply not one that I recognise.

These amendments, were we to pass them, would create a rift between schools with a religious foundation and those which do not have such a foundation, and that is inimical to the whole way in which the maintained education system in this country has been established. Indeed, proposed new subsection (2) in Amendment 61A seems to withdraw the right of parents to remove their children from worship within a school with a religious background, and I would deeply regret the withdrawal of that right. I believe that there should be a right to withdraw pupils from collective worship and, if that right were removed, Church of England schools might be less able to encourage local community integration—something on which I believe they have a very good record.

The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, spoke about how our society has become much more multicultural over the last generation. One way in which that has been encouraged and supported has been through the work of faith schools. Many Church of England schools have significant numbers of Muslim pupils. Indeed, in hundreds of them more than 80 per cent of the pupils are Muslim. Through the constructive and positive use of the law as it stands, they have been able to integrate those pupils with pupils from Christian backgrounds and pupils from families with no faith background. The danger is that, if we split community schools from those with a religious foundation, we shall create a more segregated system within our country. Most Church of England schools are not in any way segregated; they are primary schools which work with their local village. The fact that a very small number of children are withdrawn from worship seems to indicate that parents, including those who do not themselves take part in Christian worship or worship in the tradition of other faiths, are willing for their children to be present at worship. They see it as being important to the life, development and growth of their children.

So far as worship in community schools is concerned, Ofsted reports high levels of compliance with the law and high levels of quality of worship, particularly in the primary sector. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, that is less the case in the secondary sector, and the Church of England stands ready to provide whatever help it can to improve the quality of acts of worship within that sector. There is a good deal of excellent practice that can be pointed to, although it is certainly true that secondary schools find the situation more difficult than do primary schools.

We do not want to marginalise worship or spirituality within the life of our schools. We recognise the need for, and place of, worship within our own proceedings at the beginning of each day here in this House. When the nation faces a time of crisis or indeed of joy and delight, it tends to do so in terms of prayer. Children need to know what prayer is about, and one of the best ways for that to happen is through the worship that takes place in both church schools and community schools.

I was pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said that Amendment 61C was undesirable. It seems to speak of an extraordinary decision which someone has to take regarding whether a 15 year-old has the maturity to decide whether he or she should attend worship. That seems to be completely unworkable and we should certainly not go in that direction.

[Lord Avebury]

I am sorry to interrupt the right reverend Prelate. I said that Amendment 61C was less preferable than Amendment 61B but the reason for tabling it was that it was in accordance with the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

I still think that the amendment is undesirable and I think that the noble Lord does so, too.

The main point is that within the maintained sector we have a dual system in a country where more than 70 per cent of people describe themselves as Christian, and it serves very well the duality of purpose in terms of the whole development of the child. It is a system that has led to significant degrees of integration within our communities, and much of that has been led by faith schools. I hope that we shall reject these amendments and that we shall do so in the cause of community integration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Avebury and the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, for coming to see me and talk about this and other issues that we will come to later on Report. I thank my noble friend also for setting out the issues and his position with his customary clarity and from a position that we all recognise is one of high principle. He knows from the conversation that we had where the Government stand on these issues, which is pretty much where the previous Government stood. As has been said by a number of noble Lords, our starting point is that the requirement is long-standing. It is difficult to dissociate that from the history of the country and the role that the church has played over a long period in individual schools and also collectively in society.

The Government believe that the experience of collective worship makes a contribution to the spiritual and moral development of young people, not just for those who attend religious schools. Collective worship in schools is different from the worship people choose to attend in a church, synagogue, mosque or other place of worship. The purpose of this requirement is not to force pupils or school staff to worship a deity but rather to understand and experience the benefits that joining together, inspired by the positive values found in Christianity and other religions, can bring to the individual and to the community. The guiding principle is that these arrangements should be flexible and fair to pupils and parents, as well as manageable for schools.

It is a matter of historical fact, as argued by the noble Lords, Lord Touhig and Lord Anderson of Swansea, and by my noble friend Lord Cormack, that the Christian traditions of our country have influenced and underpin our systems of law, justice and democracy. It is true, as has been said, that they have inspired and supported a tolerant and inclusive culture that welcomes and celebrates diversity. In the British Household Survey of 2010, more than 70 per cent of people said that their religion was Christian, and we think it right, therefore, that these values should underpin the ethos of our schools.

The law requires schools to provide collective worship that is relevant to all pupils, no matter what their background or beliefs, which should ensure that collective worship is presented in a way that benefits the spiritual, moral and cultural development of all children and young people. The requirement is for “broadly Christian” provision. It does not preclude the inclusion of other religions or consideration of the values that inform the practice of worship, which are common to many religions, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, rightly pointed out. Schools have the freedom, under the Education Act 1996, to apply for a determination from the local authority if they judge that it is not appropriate for the requirement for collective worship to be of a broadly Christian nature to apply to their school. That safeguard is in place. The Government respect the right of parents—

[Lord Avebury]

I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend but can he confirm that there cannot be a determination to have no act of collective worship at all where the majority of parents would wish to have that?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

It is the case. I probably will not get the precise words right but my noble friend Lord Avebury accurately sums up the clause; they could make arrangements for provision to encompass a different religious belief. Parents can withdraw their children—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I am afraid that I do not know specific figures. I understand that overall there appear to be few cases of parents triggering such a thing. If we have better particulars I will send them to the noble Lord.

Parents can withdraw their children from collective worship if they wish to do so. Sixth-form pupils, as we have discussed, have this right. We think that the balance in allowing sixth-formers to decide for themselves whether to attend in line with their increasing maturity and independence is about right. We think that parents should be able to exercise those rights on behalf of children of compulsory school age. We would expect that, in exercising this right, parents would take their child’s views into account.

It is a sensitive area in which schools have to balance the rights of parents to have their children educated according to their religious or philosophical belief and those of children who have the right to manifest their own religious belief. They also have the right to express their views on matters that affect them. In practice, we think that schools are able to balance those competing rights and we would expect both parents and schools to take account of the views of children in making such decisions. We believe that schools can and do use the current system for collective worship to make provision for a variety of different perspectives. The situation we have arrived at, which I recognise is unsatisfactory to my noble friend Lord Avebury, is one that successive Governments have considered fair and flexible, and this Government continue to take that view. With that, I hope that my noble friend Lord Avebury will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, it would be quite impossible to do justice to the extensive discussion that we have just been having, but it would be remiss of me not to thank all noble Lords who have taken part, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, with whom we had a similar discussion in Committee. Noble Lords have raised many different questions related to the collective worship issue, which has enabled us to make it clear that we are not talking about teaching about religions and the knowledge that children should have of the history of this country and the Christian background that we all share. That is part of religious education and we are not arguing that that should not be continued in the same way as it always has been and that it should not be underlined as part of the heritage of this country.

We are talking about a specific issue: whether people should be asked to pray to or worship a particular god at the time of the assembly that takes place at the beginning of the school day. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, I would say that most schools—probably a majority—already have discussions on moral and ethical issues at assembly that do not involve prayer or worship. They are breaking the law and do so in a way that conforms to the spirit of the legislation in that children can imbibe knowledge of the background of moral and ethical issues that underline our civilisation. I shall not give a sermon on what those moral and ethical issues are but it is fairly obvious that they include tolerance, kindness, compassion, respect for others and inclusiveness. By imposing the act of worship on children who do not believe in God or who do not wish to take part, we are not being inclusive but are deliberately excluding all those pupils who have a conscientious objection to acts of subjection to a supreme being.

I know that we have not reached the end of this discussion but we are at an intermediate stage when it would be proper for me to ask to test the opinion of the House on this subject. I beg to move.