My Lords, I am an elected member of a council that does not have prayers or any time for reflection at the beginning of its proceedings and council meetings. I have been a member for rather longer than I dare declare—30 years. In that time there have been some extremely acrimonious and unpleasant incidents. It has not been the happiest and most collegiate of places to work on behalf of the public. I cannot help feeling that if those moments of quiet reflection and prayers had taken place during those years then the business of the council would have been far speedier and certainly would have been better for the public who we served.
I hope that the stimulation this debate may bring may give my council food for thought yet again, and that maybe a democratic decision could be made about reinstating that quiet time at the beginning of proceedings. As we have heard, it does not have to be religious in a particular sense: that council could chose to make it something that reflected the population of that council, or it could be a quiet time for reflection. I think that the Bill, which will put back the status that we assumed prayers had, is a good thing.