As the election approaches – who will you vote for?

Over the next few months, as the election machinery begins to crank more forcefully into action, the NSS will receive its usual request from members about where the parties stand on the issues of concern to secularists.

We will, through Newsline, bring you what information we can find, and it would be useful if readers could approach those in their own constituencies who are standing for election to ask where they stand on given issues. So, we are asking you to approach candidates for the Labour, Conservative and LibDems (or other parties) in your area to ask them their stance on the following issues:

• Faith schools – do you support the plans for the expansion of the faith school system?
• Reform of the House of Lords – do you support a fully-elected House of Lords, and do you think the Bishops bench is a legitimate part of the Upper House?
• What is your stance on the funding by the health service of hospital chaplains?
• Do you support the concept of farming our social services to religious groups? If so, do you think it necessary to place conditions on the funding of these groups to prevent discrimination in service provision and employment? Or do you think religious groups should have the right to deny employment to people of other faiths and none while they run state-funded welfare services?

Please let us see the replies you get so that we can share them with other Newsline readers, to help inform their decision about who to vote for. Send the responses to enquiries@secularism.org.uk or by post to NSS, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL.

To get the ball rolling, here is a reply one of our readers received from his MP, Theresa Villiers, Conservative MP for Chipping Barnet. Our reader had asked about state funding for faith schools and hospital chaplains. Ms Villiers replied:

“There are currently no plans to scrap hospital chaplaincy services either by the Government or the Conservative Party. Hospital chaplains offer spiritual comfort and peace of mind to many patients that doctors and nurses, despite doing a brilliant job, perhaps are not qualified to give in all cases.

I also note your views regarding Conservative policy on faith schools. I support faith schools, and believe that the state should continue to fund them. Many faith schools provide their pupils with an outstanding, academically rigorous education, making them rightly valued by parents and the local community.

Parents should be free to raise their children within a religious tradition, and they should also be free to choose a school which reflects that belief. Of course we need to work towards creating a more integrated society, but that is not inconsistent with recognising parents' legitimate freedom to decide upon the type of education their children receive.

I believe that every parent should have the right to have their child educated in a good school, regardless of their religious beliefs, and to be able to do this we need to create 200,000 new school places.

Our plans would allow good new schools to open in precisely those areas where parents are denied a proper choice.

Last weekend, the Financial Times Weekend Magazine carried a long essay on the influence of religious groups on Conservative Party policy formulation. Although at the moment these groups present themselves as being primarily concerned with “poverty”, we note the involvement of groups such as the Christian Medical Fellowship and the Lawyers Christian Fellowship, both of which have alarmingly regressive social agendas that would impose reactionary religious restrictions on to the private and public life of us all. Here is a political blog about the Tory claims from the Guardian.

In the gay news site Pink News, Nick Clegg, the leader of the LibDems, answered questions from readers.

And finally, here Melissa Benn considers the impact of the Tories’ proposed education reforms that could see schools handed over to any whacko who wants to push their ideas on to children. They are most likely to be seized on by those promoting a religious agenda.