With respect to my noble friend, I did not think it was beyond doubt. I thought Section 111(1) did cover it; nor has the Bideford judgment anything to do with the matters we are currently discussing, because the conclusion of the judge when summing up was:
“'The saying of prayers as part of the formal meeting of a council is not lawful under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972”.
But we have got beyond that now. We are not talking about prayers; we are talking about the attendance, support or facilitating of events of a religious nature by members of a local authority.
I do not know how many times I have to repeat this but no one who supports the Bill has the slightest objection to the national events that I was talking about earlier. We would not dream of trying to frustrate local authorities’ decisions to participate in those important national events. What we are talking about are the words “support or facilitate”, which do not occur in Section 111(1) of the Local Government Act. I am saying that it carries enormous dangers if you give people those powers. I refer to the case of the former mayor of Tower Hamlets and the machinations that he was engaged in in generating support from religious communities within Tower Hamlets. There is a serious point here that if we allow local authorities to support or facilitate events that are of a religious character, we are opening a Pandora’s box, which we may regret later on.
I sense that the House wants this discussion to come to an end. I conclude that because the Bill had the support of the other place and because it is not our position to frustrate the will of the other place, which we would do if we pressed this amendment to a Division, I beg leave to withdraw it.