Call from NSS to scrap House of Lords prayers

Secular members of the House of Lords – all of them Honorary Associates or supporters of the National Secular Society – have urged that the prayers that precede sessions in the Lords should be scrapped.

The NSS has written to the procedure committee on behalf of five peers, Lord Avebury, Lord Desai, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, Lord Taverne and Baroness Turner of Camden. All have said they would prefer no replacement at all to the prayers. All but one, Lord Avebury, said they would be prepared to accept an alternative of a short period of silence before sessions, as in the Northern Ireland Assembly – indeed, Lord McIntosh prefers that option.

The peers’ letter followed a Parliamentary question tabled by Lord Rana raising the possibility of Christian prayers at the beginning of House of Lords sessions being replaced by a “multi-faith” version.

Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society, said multifaith prayers would create the “worst of all worlds”. “It would actually cause divisions that are not there at the moment,” he said.

Reports suggested that prayers should be replaced by a Thought for the Day-style rotation. Mr Porteous Wood pointed out that if such a system were to be introduced, it would probably contain the very element of Thought for the Day that made is so objectionable – its complete rejection of non-believers.

A Church of England spokesman reacted to the NSS proposal by arguing, unsurprisingly, for the status quo: “Prayers in both Houses are also a symbol of the establishment of the Church of England, the importance of which the Government has repeatedly stressed as something valued by people of all faiths and none.”