Education (Non-religious Philosophical Convictions) Bill [HL]

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, I speak in this debate feeling somewhat like an officer of the Salvation Army commending temperance to a conference of brewers. None the less, while I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, has made some important points introducing this Bill and I am grateful for them, I want to make some general points to gently demonstrate why this proposed measure for RE in schools without a religious character is unnecessary. I am glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, although my view is somewhat different on this occasion from his wisdom and I have no immediate plans to join the British Humanist Association.

First, I stress the value of what remains of religious education within our schools. While the outcomes of education remain a contested area of debate in society, the purpose of education and what it does to us receives much less attention. Too much is assumed in that regard, and that partly informs this Bill. My belief is that human flourishing happens in body, mind and spirit and that education engages us in each of these aspects, which need to be held together holistically.

Religious inheritance in this country is primarily Christian, although I am not sure that the statistics take account of those who have very strong convictions of other faiths. It has shaped our culture, language and built environment. Even the shape of our present secularism bears the marks of an earlier Christian humanism and the Protestant Reformation. While that is the case, the whole framework of our education system, including that which the Bill calls a “worldview”, is the product of the European enlightenment. Consequently, what the noble Baroness seeks in this Bill in terms of a non-religious worldview is represented and imbedded already across the curriculum, from arts and social sciences to the sciences themselves. It is taught, imbibed and breathed in and out virtually every minute of every school day.

I am not seeking to decry the value of philosophy, not least the maxims of how to live a good life, nor do I demean humanism and the emphasis on individual and societal potential. Some of its greatest exponents were the Christian humanists of the 15th and 16th centuries, such as Pope Nicholas V and Desiderius Erasmus. But the heirs of Spinoza and Rousseau neither understand nor support the role of religion in public life. This is a failure of imagination and spirit, as it is of the intellect. As the Hungarian economist and philosopher of science Michael Polanyi demonstrated, no framework of human endeavour or education is value-free—even the scientific method. For him all knowledge is personal and involves a moral commitment. Polanyi insisted that, for example, Copernicus arrived at the earth’s relation to the sun not as a consequence of following a method but via

“the greater intellectual satisfaction he derived from the celestial panorama as seen from the Sun instead of the Earth”.

Religious sensibility acknowledges the spiritual dimension of life in very particular ways. It does so through the inheritance of centuries and the lived experience of the human race. In the three Abrahamic faiths, it rests on claims of historic revelation. This feeding of the whole person is now restricted to a very small part of any programme of education. The Bill risks assaulting its identity by adding explicit principles evident throughout the rest of the educational curriculum. Whether or not this is intentional, it should be resisted.