NSS member Alan Rogers, who has been urging the setting up of charitable trusts to pay for hospital chaplains in Wales, has written to Assembly members urging them to support his campaign.

The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, faced a House of Commons Education select committee this week to answer questions about the Academies Act. It became law yesterday after having been rushed through Parliament with scandalously inadequate scrutiny, given the scale of the changes and the complexity of our education system.

As part of the Labour leadership hustings, the five prospective candidates (Diane Abbott, Ed Balls, David Miliband, Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham) have all faced a series of questions over their party’s unpopular policies surrounding faith schools.

When the Treaty of Lisbon was signed, it brought into effect a clause that gives special consultation rights to religious organisations. It is something the Vatican has been trying to achieve for decades.

The National Secular Society is staging a film season in the days before the Pope arrives in Britain. The films will look at aspects of the Catholic Church which both the Government and the Church itself would prefer were not mentioned during the visit of the “Holy Father”.

In the House of Lords last week, Lord Kilclooney asked the Government: “What is the estimated cost to the Exchequer of the planned state visit to the United Kingdom this year by Pope Benedict XVI.”

The left in this country has had the reputation of championing the cause of anti-racism, gay rights and civil liberties, but now it is seen to be blind to the obvious problems with the doctrine of multiculturalism, and even paralysed by the hypnotic term “Islamophobia”, which it has been persuaded equates with “racism”.

Wrexham Council in Denbighshire is to recognise the demand for non-religious funerals and will provide the “services” at the local crematorium — or anywhere else that isn’t a religious building — for £110.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is sometimes referred to as female circumcision although it is far more severe than the male version and should always be referred to as what it is – mutilation.

The Academies Bill has finished its rapid passage through the Lords and has moved to the House of Commons. Crucial secularist amendments were given short shrift.