Local Government (Religious etc. Observances) Bill

Lord Elton Excerpts

Friday 13th March 2015 Lords Chamber

I would like to hear from my noble friend whether he and his supporters think prayers are an effective means of pursuing the welfare of citizens living in the area of a local authority and, if not, what conceivable benefit to the public lines 4 to 15 can have. The key question your Lordships should be asking is whether prayers are essential to the good conduct of local government because, if not, all the amendments in this group should be supported.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, it is not necessary to support the racist remarks of some councillors to resist this amendment. I merely draw to the attention of my noble friend Lord Avebury the fact that the provisions here are not mandatory—they are permissive. Nothing is being forced on anybody. Secondly, as to how you get over the difficulty of not participating in prayers in a public body without drawing attention to yourself, I commend my noble friend to do as others do in this Chamber, which is to wait outside and then come in, with no need for the sitting to be suspended.

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, perhaps I should declare an interest, having just led the Prayers in this Chamber.

What concerns me about the opening remarks from the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, is the assumption that in a multireligious and secular society it is in the interests of all the religions to evacuate the public space of any religion. That is not my experience in Leicester at all, which is one of the most multireligious cities in this country. A few years ago, a Lord Mayor of Leicester decided, having the powers so to do, to discontinue prayers in the council chamber before meetings of the council and, at the end of his mayoral year, leaders of the other faith communities pressed hard that prayers should be reinstated in the chamber. It has been our experience continually that the argument for prayer in public comes from the leadership of the many faiths in Leicester. That has also been the case in the remembrance observances, which have grown during my time as bishop from about 1,000 people—in Victoria Park on Remembrance Day—to somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000, where Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Hindus, Christians, Baha’is, and Buddhists stand and remember together in public those who have fallen in war.

The point was made in the opening remarks about the connections between the global and the local. Those are profound connections, particularly in our great cities. The solidarity of people standing together in respect for the divine is a very significant part of how we preserve cohesion in our society.