The launch of a major new campaign will increase the pressure on Home Secretary Theresa May to reform the controversial 1986 Public Order Act, after mounting evidence suggests the Act is strangling free speech.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles says that the Localism Act "enables councils to continue to include prayer as part of the formal business at council meetings."

According to a BBC report, recommendations from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on House of Lord Reform due to be published in April will include keeping the Bishops Bench but reducing the number from 26 to 12.

A consultation on a draft Commonwealth Charter closes today. The National Secular Society believes there are serious omissions in the draft, particularly disadvantaging women and those in sexual minorities.

The Church of England has issued a Review that requests a "concordat" with the Government that would give it more "faith schools" and increase its influence over other areas of the education system and over community schools with which it would "partner".

Human Rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has won this year's Secularist of the Year award, presented by the National Secular Society at a formal luncheon on Saturday in central London. He will be presented with the £5,000 Irwin Prize by the author and freedom of expression campaigner Nick Cohen. The audience will include prominent scientists, journalists and writers.

The Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles – and the Coalition Government as a whole – risks alienating huge swathes of the population of this country with calls to return Christianity to the centre of public life, says the National Secular Society.

Bideford Town Council decided last night by 10 votes to 3 to appeal against the High Court's decision that prayers during Council meetings were unlawful. This follows a ruling in the High Court on 10 February 2012 in a judicial review brought by the National Secular Society to test the law.

The High Court today ruled that "The saying of prayers as part of the formal meeting of a Council is not lawful under s111 of the Local Government Act 1972, and there is no statutory power permitting the practice to continue".

A judgement on the Judicial Review into prayers during local council meetings is to be handed down at the Royal Courts of Justice on Friday 10 February at 10am.