My Lords, I have concerns about this Bill. I have never been a councillor, but there are matters of principle as well as practicalities I want to draw attention to, which we ignore at our peril.
The main issue is one of representation. A council is not elected for its religious beliefs. Individual council members are elected because of what they pledge to do for their local area, as well as for their political affiliations. Councillors, therefore, do not represent any particular religion, and that is an important point.
By the same token neither is an electorate a religious community. Eric Pickles, in defending prayers as a formal part of council meetings, was reported two years ago in the newspapers as saying:
“While welcoming and respecting fellow British citizens who belong to other faiths, we are a Christian country”.
But the reality is that in modern Britain this is only partly true. We are today a multi-cultural, multi-faith country, which contains a diversity of beliefs and non-beliefs. A Huffington Post UK poll conducted in October last year found that more than 60% of those polled in Britain were—and I quote from the Huffington Post UK—“not religious at all”.
Any electorate, then, is likely to be diverse in its religious beliefs and non-beliefs. However, if a council votes to hold prayers of a particular religion as part of
its formal business, or continues to do so for tradition’s sake, it is not just a minority of councillors who are then excluded or imposed upon but a significant number of the electorate as well. The councillors, it must be remembered, are the electorate’s servants.
In making these comments, I am not against prayer or religion. Indeed, in my opinion, it is the bishops, as much as anyone, who have in recent times been the conscience of the nation. The fact is that politics and religion overlap as philosophies, and I recognise that many who have strong religious beliefs go into politics at every level. I suspect—I do not have any numbers to prove this—that a disproportionate number of people with strong religious beliefs become politicians, relative to the population as a whole. That is simply a fact of life, but I reiterate: it is not for their religious beliefs that councillors are elected, and therefore religion should not constitute part of the formal business of council meetings.
As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, the Bill does not specify which God should be prayed to or religion followed. I think that if the Bill passes, we will have a recipe for divisiveness and storing up potential problems in the long term. Is not the wisest course for councils to be scrupulously impartial with respect to the beliefs and non-beliefs held by the residents of a local area, while at the same time having a presence at, for example, the celebration of cultural and religious festivals where appropriate to do so? Institutionalising a particular religion within the formal business of a council meeting or identifying the council with a belief, or even a range of beliefs, must in the modern age be insensitive and crosses what many people would think is today’s acceptable line. In modern parliaments and assemblies, for instance at the GLA’s City Hall, we quite rightly now have multifaith chapels. Where individual councillors are keen to say prayers, is it too much to ask that a space—even a temporary space— be put aside for private prayer? That is a possible way forward.
I have one question of clarification. As far as I can see, nowhere in Section 1 of the Localism Act 2011 is there any reference to prayers being said at council meetings, but the notes accompanying the Bill say that it builds on that Act, which is supposed to allow local authorities to have prayers as part of formal business. At the same time, the Bill does not amend that Act but the Local Government Act 1972. The Bill consequently contains the full range of councils and assemblies, so I am not sure that it can be claimed to be as modest as some argue. It might be added that the Localism Act 2011, as far as I know, was not used in any defence in the National Secular Society and Mr Clive Bone v Bideford Town Council, which took place in 2012. The prosecution was on the basis of the Local Government Act. Therefore, I should like to know what precise wording in the Localism Act is deemed to allow prayers, and whether that would really stand up in a court of law.
I hope that the Government and the Opposition take careful note of these arguments before coming to any decision about support or otherwise for the Bill.
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