My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and the Minister for the meeting we had with them to discuss the Bill and our amendments earlier in the week, even though it was apparent that there was a fundamental difference of opinion between us about the relationship between religion and the affairs of secular authorities. The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, has done your Lordships an important service in enabling us to underline these differences, which may not be reflected so clearly among us as they are in the country at large.
As the Bill’s supporters observe at every opportunity, this Bill is permissive, but that does not justify it. It enables the majority of the persons on a passenger transport executive, for example, to hold prayers during their meetings and to support or facilitate, presumably
with public money, a religious event. If they exercise these powers, they are in no way contributing to the comfort, welfare or any other benefit of their passengers, but on the contrary they are subtracting from the time available for considering how to improve the services they provide for the public.
The argument that these matters should be for the majority to decide is not acceptable. It is no triumph for democracy if the local authorities and other bodies covered by this Bill are given power to impose something which is bound to divide members from one another according to their religion or belief. It would mark out those who do not participate in the observance as not being full members of the body concerned, a body which in most cases would be subject to the public sector equality duty.
That duty, imposed by the Equality Act, means that any authority considering the use of these powers would have to consider whether they are compatible with the public sector equality duty, a matter to which I take it the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has given some thought. When he comes to reply, he can perhaps explain why he thinks the powers are indeed compatible with the public sector equality duty when, instead of enhancing religious freedom, the Bill imposes the procedures of a religious majority on those who have been elected to do a secular job.
Therefore, I support Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, which omits proposed new Section 138A, which deals with prayers. If my noble friend Lord Cormack is not prepared to accept that proposal, I ask him at least to accept Amendments 2 and 4, which require a two-thirds majority for prayers.
No satisfactory answer has been given by the Bill’s supporters as to why those who wish to pray cannot do so informally before or after a meeting of the council or other body in their own time. Those who oppose council prayers are accused of intolerance. However, the advocates of prayers always refuse to acknowledge that no objection has been raised by us to prayer before council meetings, as indeed the National Secular Society suggested at the High Court hearing on the Bideford case.
As the Bill stands, those not wishing to participate in prayers have either to put up with them or draw attention to themselves by leaving the chamber in front of the public and then returning, probably without the chair making their nonconformity less obvious by suspending the proceedings. Both options are gratuitously unwelcoming, discourteous and divisive.
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These concerns are not purely theoretical. I quote a Muslim former Tory councillor in Reigate and Banstead Borough Council. He says of his experience of council prayers:
“I found this experience to be wholly alienating. As someone who does not wish to recite Christian prayers, I had to wait outside the room while the prayers were taking place. This clearly set me apart as being different from all the other councillors, several of whom suggested to me that not only was I being ‘difficult’ as this was such a trivial issue, but that I had no right to exempt myself from the meetings. Since I had to walk across the floor afterwards, bumping past the mainly elderly white audience,
people thought I was either purposely trying to be disrespectful to their beliefs, or I was late to the meeting—something taken very seriously by other councillors”.
Senior Tory councillors at the time advised him that, if he did not like the way things were being done, he should consider leaving the country. He received an email from an executive member of the council, which was copied to the rest of the Conservative group:
“As far as I am concerned the most basic gift we can offer the minorities is the one we all enjoy and that is freedom. Freedom to not attend, walk away, or go somewhere else if you don’t like the way we live”.
That view was apparently shared widely by the other Conservative members of the council. The Muslim councillor told the National Secular Society that:
“Being told to consider leaving the country if I do not agree with a … culturally chauvinist view of society—one at odds with the judgment of a High Court Judge—certainly sits uneasily with my need to participate as an active citizen who believes in liberal democratic freedoms”.
Amendment 4 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, goes some way to ameliorate that problem, and I am very happy to support it.
A significant proportion of the staff who do not wish to pray will feel unable or embarrassed to leave the chamber. My noble friend Lord Cormack seems to have overlooked them entirely, although that may also conflict with the authorities’ public sector equality duty. I ask my noble friend to confirm whether this matter has been considered and whether he can say what legal advice he has received on it.
The Bill’s supporters claim that the Bill simply restores the position that was thought to be the case prior to the High Court judgment in the Bideford case. The assumption that prayers were intra vires seems to have been made without legal advice, probably by those who think that there can never be too much religion in public life. However, there have been no suggestions that the High Court ruling was in error, and your Lordships should note that there was no appeal against it. It is unfortunate when a Minister of the Crown, Mr Eric Pickles, shows little respect for the courts in his derogatory reference to a judgment that does not go his way. The BBC quotes him as saying:
“By effectively reversing that illiberal ruling, we are striking a blow for localism over central interference, for freedom to worship over intolerant secularism, for Parliamentary sovereignty over judicial activism, and for long-standing British liberties over modern-day political correctness”.
That is the view of Eric Pickles.
Finally, on the subject of prayers and the claim that this is a modest Bill: the Explanatory Notes assert that the Localism Act gives principal authorities the powers,
“to have prayers as part of formal meetings”.
The lawyers who advise the National Secular Society disagree with this. Will my noble friend Lord Cormack arrange for a copy of the legal opinion on which this claim in the Explanatory Notes is based to be placed in the Library of the House in the next few days, and can he say whether the Bill, as well as the Explanatory Notes, were drafted by the DCLG, and at what cost to the taxpayer? If the lawyers who maintain that the Localism Act does not give the power that the Explanatory Notes claim they do are correct, the Bill is not making a modest incremental change but a fundamental one:
and that is before one takes account of the quite extraordinary and diverse list—two pages long—of bodies that have never been able to summon their members to prayers and are now being empowered to do so.
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.