Equality Bill

I tabled Amendment 58ZA as a practical response to a real and growing problem. Although I attended much of the Second Reading debate on the Bill, I was unable to remain until the end and observed the convention not to speak at that time. Having followed the Committee proceedings with great interest, I recognise that there is a great deal in the Bill which ought to commend itself to the House. The noble Baroness the Leader of the House—as she has demonstrated again today—and others in the team who have been dealing with this Bill have shown great sensitivity and reasonableness in dealing with some of the issues that noble Lords have raised. I am sure that the Government realise that there is growing apprehension in the churches and among religious believers of all faiths about how parts of the legislation may impact on them—concerns which are reflected beyond the faith communities. I commend to the Committee today’s article in the Times by the director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, which looks at this question from the point of view of personal liberties rather than that of religious faith. My amendment seeks to address a key question on the balance that always has to be struck between religious freedom on the one hand and how the exercise of that freedom impacts on the wider community. In moving this amendment to Schedule 3 which provides a list of exemptions related to education—I should declare that I am a governor of a Catholic school and that I have children in Catholic schools—I am advised by the Public Bill Office that this is the appropriate place to include these further exemptions, which have application both in schools and beyond. The amendment adds to the list of exceptions which has been created in Clause 29 relating to religious discrimination in the provision of goods and services. There is much in that list of exemptions—relating to curriculum, acts of worship and admission—that will be welcome by those involved in almost 7,000 voluntary-aided schools with a religious character in Britain, as well as those in the independent sector. The Committee will be aware that religious discrimination in goods and services was first outlawed in Part 2 of the Equality Act 2006; so this is not a new concept. Along with the exemptions is a consolidation of existing provision. Clause 29 makes discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief unlawful, but with the law of unintended consequences in mind, I would like the Committee to consider what has become recognised as unlawful discrimination. My concern is that these provisions may be used, and indeed are already being used, by those whose intentions are hostile to Britain’s Christian heritage. Others, who are more well meaning, may simply be labouring under the mistaken belief that stamping out religious discrimination means stamping out religion. Under the nomenclature and language of equality, this has led to countless, ludicrous examples of risible things which public and private bodies have done in recent years, all under the guise of equality. In 2008, two years after we first outlawed religious discrimination in goods and services, under the pretext of not causing offence, Oxford Council officials dropped "Christmas" from the title of the city centre celebrations. Instead of "Christmas", they substituted "Winter Light Festival". The banning or dilution of Christian festivals has been criticised not only by Christian leaders but also by Muslim and Jewish religious leaders. I enjoy the celebration of Hanukkah or Diwali, and I know of no Rabbi or Hindu leader who feels offended by my enjoyment of Christmas or Easter. Their complaint is usually about aggressive ideological secularisation. In 2008, it was reported that a Yorkshire college had removed Christmas and Easter from its staff calendar in case they offended people. Instead, senior managers at Yorkshire Coast College in Scarborough in north Yorkshire said that the holidays would be referred to as "end-of-term breaks" in order to "increase inclusion and diversity". What next? Must we refer to the Sabbath as "the day that dare not speak its name" or the parish as "the collective"? Will we have to remove the names of saints from all the streets, towns or colleges that bear them? Before a public outcry, Perth Royal Infirmary was told to remove the communion table from its chapel after the NHS trust warned that it could offend non-Christians. However, it is not people of other faiths who are driving this agenda, and perhaps I may give the Committee an example. Last October, a town councillor in Kendal in the north-west of England who is an atheist and a member of the National Secular Society threatened legal action because of the council’s tradition of opening its meeting with a time of prayer, as we do in your Lordships’ House and in another place. It was claimed that prayers would lead to some people feeling excluded. The councillor demanded that the prayers be scrapped or held in a different room. In an attempt to respond sensitively, Kendal Council voted to move the prayers to five minutes before the official start of their meeting, so that those who did not wish to attend did not have to. The councillor responded by saying that he was bitterly disappointed by the decision, objecting to the principle of prayers at all, even though they would take place before the meeting began and there would be no duty on him to attend. He announced that he will now explore legal remedies. In 2008, a similar case occurred in Bideford. This all beggars belief and makes me wonder whether we have taken leave of our senses. Surely, in a truly tolerant and diverse society, we would not have to contend with such ideological hatred. You do not have to be religious to recognise this country’s rich inheritance. Our Judaeo-Christian ideals are woven into the nation’s fabric: its laws, its charitable endeavours, its schools, hospitals and hospices, its art and architecture, its culture and its spirituality. It is in all our political traditions. After all, faith in politics gave us Wilberforce, Shaftesbury, Gladstone, Keir Hardie and many others. This makes it all the more perplexing for me to encounter an ideological intolerance that seeks to marginalise religion, and Christianity in particular, not least because the majority of people in this country—almost three-quarters—still call themselves Christians. I am not arguing that we should force the Christian faith on those who do not hold it; I am simply arguing that evidence of the Christian faith in society, such as Bibles, prayers and the wearing of a cross, should not in itself be classed as discrimination. Along with many others, I was outraged to read about the case of Nadia Eweida, a British Airways employee who was told to conceal a small silver cross which she wore around her neck. In today’s Times, on page 26, Shami Chakrabarti, under the headline "Freedom must apply to all faiths and none", said: ""The Christian’s right to wear a cross must be defended as fiercely as any other religious liberty"," and she refers specifically to this case. Worse still, she said that BA, having initially been confronted with Miss Eweida’s complaint, instructed an international law firm strenuously to resist her claim of religious discrimination. What followed, says Miss Chakrabarti, ""was an extremely disappointing employment appeal tribunal that found no discrimination, because ‘Christians generally’ do not consider wearing a cross as a religious ‘requirement’. This fundamentally misunderstands the idea of individual rights and freedoms, which do not depend on how many people agree with your conscience or speech. It also opens up secular courts to lengthy arguments as to what is a theological necessity. Making windows into men’s souls is as pointlessly complex as it is dangerous"." I wholeheartedly agree with her. I shall not quote from the article at great length but she goes on to say: ""Here the struggle for religious freedom has been strongly connected with the struggle for democracy itself"," so I think that we should see these issues always as inextricably linked. She says, too, that a new poll has been published today. A Liberty-ComRes poll shows that, ""86 per cent of British Christians polled disagreed with BA’s treatment of Ms Eweida and 80 per cent agreed that her case sets a dangerous precedent. Even more encouragingly, 96 per cent think that everybody should have freedom of thought, conscience and religion as long as they do not harm others; 85 per cent say that regardless of your faith, the law should protect the right to wear its symbols as long as they do not harm others"." Let me give another example: Pilgrim Homes is a 200 year-old charity, set up by William Wilberforce—