A LIBERAL-DEMOCRAT Bill to scrap the requirement for daily collective worship in non-faith schools in England and replace it with inclusive assemblies has returned to the House of Lords.
The Education (Assemblies) Bill, a Private Member’s Bill from Baroness Burt — the vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group — was given its First Reading late last week. The date of the Second Reading is yet to be announced.
A previous version of her Bill had a Second Reading in September 2021, where it gained support from several peers, among them the former Bishop of Oxford, Lord Harries (News, 17 September 2021). Other peers, including the present Bishop of Oxford, Dr Steven Croft, opposed it.
Responding on behalf of the Government at the time, Baroness Chisholm, then a Conservative peer, had said that there was “no need to amend the current legislation on collective worship. Collective worship is already flexible and inclusive in nature.” And since the Bill did not have the backing of the Government, it did not progress through the Commons to the final stages.
The latest version of the Bill is a copy of the first. Its purpose is to “amend the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 to make provision regarding assemblies at state schools without a designated religious character in England; to repeal the requirement for those schools to hold collective worship; and for connected purposes.”
Legal challenge. The Liberal Democrats met in Brighton this week for their autumn conference. Documents leaked to The Daily Telegraph over the weekend suggested that the party would not accept members who were opposed to abortion for religious reasons.
David Campanale, an Anglican layman who was deselected as a Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate earlier this year, is suing the party under the Equality Act, claiming that he has been subject to discrimination because of his Christian beliefs (News, 14 June).
A 34-page legal defence submitted by the Lib Dems to Liverpool County Court last week, seen by the Telegraph, reportedly claims that the party “had a right to deselect” Mr Campanale, because his “expressed religious beliefs against abortion, gay marriage and legal sex change conflicted with the fundamental values set out” in the party’s governing document.
Mr Campanale, a former BBC investigative journalist who held a seat as a Liberal Democrat councillor from 1986 to 1994, was announced as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Sutton and Cheam in January 2022, having first been approved as a prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) in 2017. According to his legal claim, submitted in May, he was “almost immediately” the subject of complaints made by members of the local party, culminating in attempts to deselect him.
A petition which called on the party to reinstate Mr Campanale — and which warned that failure to do would send a “chilling message to Christians” — was signed by the Bishops of Winchester and Guildford (Letters, 24 May and 31 May).
The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams, told the Telegraph that the Lib Dem’s stance could set a “worrying precedent” that would make it “impossible” for some people of faith to join political parties.
“The Liberal Democrat Party’s response to Campanale’s legal challenge has been to say that reservations about, for example, abortion or same-sex marriage are in conflict with ‘fundamental values’ held by the party.
“If it is indeed impossible even to hold dissenting views, this ought to make it impossible for Orthodox Jews and most Muslims as well as Catholics and other Christians to represent the party. Is this really what the Lib Dems are saying?
“You may or may not agree with the personal beliefs of David Campanale — I share some but by no means all of them — but the precedent is a worrying one.”
He continued: “It is not enough to preserve one’s private conscientious judgement, it seems; total agreement in private and in public is demanded.”