We don't think religious worship should play any part in the formal business of the state.
We want to see parliamentary and local government meetings conducted in a manner equally welcoming to all attendees, whatever their personal beliefs.
Parliamentary prayers
Sittings in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords begin with Anglican prayers. MPs and peers stand for prayers facing the wall behind them – a practice thought to have developed due to the difficulty members would historically have faced of kneeling to pray while wearing a sword.
When the chamber is at its busiest, parliamentary prayers act as a bizarre and antiquated seat reservation system. Even MPs and peers who are slated to speak have no option but to attend prayers in order to reserve a seat.
Whilst they may be viewed by some as an important tradition, parliamentary prayers serve to assert the superiority of Christianity (and the Church of England in particular) at Westminster. This 'tradition' is inimical to a modern, pluralistic, secular democracy.
In the Scottish Parliament, Tuesday afternoon sessions begin with 'Time for Reflection', with faith and belief representatives invited to addresses members for up to four minutes. The Northern Ireland Assembly begins formal business with a period of two minutes of silent prayer or contemplation. The Welsh Assembly has adopted no such rituals.
Parliamentarians who wish to pray are free to do so. But prayers should not form part of the official business of Parliament.
Council prayers
Many local authorities in Britain also begin their meetings with prayer.
Local democracy should be equally welcoming to all sections of society, regardless of their religion or belief. Council meetings should be conducted without anyone feeling excluded, or compelled to either participate in prayers or absent themselves from part of the meeting.
Council prayers open the door to wholly unnecessary conflict and sectarian squabbles within local authorities. There is a history of local councillors being bullied and marginalised for challenging council prayers.
The absence of prayers from the formal business of meetings in no way impedes religious freedoms or denies anybody the right to pray. Conversely, organised worship in secular settings imposes worship on those who do not share the faith. A genuine commitment to freedom of religion or belief is incompatible with including acts of worship in the formal business of council meetings.
If local authorities wish to hold a moment of silent reflection at the beginning of a meeting, or if councillors wish to meet for prayers prior to the meeting, they are at liberty to do so.
Take action!
1. Write to your MP
Please enter your postcode and urge your MP to support an alternative to parliamentary prayers, to make parliament more welcoming to people of all faiths and none.
2. Share your story
Tell us why you support this campaign, and how you are personally affected by the issue. You can also let us know if you would like assistance with a particular issue - for example, if you would like to challenge prayers at your own council.
3. Join the National Secular Society
Become a member of the National Secular Society today! Together, we can separate religion and state for greater freedom and fairness.
Latest updates
Tackling CofE privilege unites Anglicans and atheists at NSS event
Posted: Thu, 18 May 2023 11:46
Politicians and priests united to challenge Church of England privileges at a National Secular Society event in parliament yesterday.
Four speakers joined the NSS's discussion on the future of church and state to argue why separation between the two would benefit both the UK state and the Church itself.
The event at the Houses of Parliament was held in the wake of King Charles' Anglican coronation this month, which shone a spotlight on the intimate relationship between church and state in the UK.
The Church's established status has also come under increased scrutiny over its continued discrimination against LGBT people and women, and its recent safeguarding scandals.
The four speakers called for an end to the CofE's many privileges, including automatic seats for its bishops in the House of Lords and Christian prayers imposed in parliament and schools.
Tommy Sheppard MP: Church in parliament "offends against a sense of democracy"
The event was opened by Scottish National Party MP Tommy Sheppard, who sponsored the event. He said he was "surprised and shocked" by the extent to which the Church permeates parliament, and that both prayers in parliament and bishops in the Lords "offend against a sense of democracy".
Pointing to the recent Census results for England and Wales, which revealed Christians are a minority for the first time, he said we are "no longer a Christian country" and that the role of the Church in parliament is "incredibly unrepresentative" of the population. He said it was incumbent on the government to make parliament more representative. He plans to arrange a debate on the bishops' bench and put questions to ministers that "they will find hard to answer".
Jayne Ozanne: The established Church 'doesn't serve anyone particularly well'
Jayne Ozanne, a prominent gay evangelical who works to ensure full inclusion of LGBT+ people within faith communities, highlighted that only 55% of British people trust clergy to tell the truth. This is less trustworthy than taxi drivers, and is 30 points behind trust levels in 1983.
She said this decline in trust in the Church "should cause greatest concern", but comes as "no surprise" in the wake of sexual abuse scandals and cover-ups, including the recent report into bishops' inaction over rapist priest Trevor Devamanikkam. She also condemned the "toxic nature of institutional homophobia" in Church culture. She said the "tide is turning" on the "hypocrisy" of the Church "lecturing" the government on morality.
Ozanne said that bishops should not be automatically elevated to the House of Lords, and criticised them for using their privilege to obtain exemptions from equality law to discriminate against LGBT people.
Finally, she questioned who establishment serves. She said doesn't serve the monarch, the country, God or even the bishops, because serving in the House of Lords interferes with their role of running a dioceses. She concluded that establishment doesn't serve "anyone particularly well", ending with: "We need champions who will defend all the vulnerable, who will speak and be heard, and whose voices are ones that the nation recognise as trustworthy and true.
"And I'm sorry to say that this is no longer, in my mind, automatically that of the bishops – and so their privileges must now go".
Dr Martyn Percy: Established Church is an overcrammed "vestry cupboard"
Ozanne was followed by theologian and ordained CofE priest Dr Martyn Percy. He compared establishment with an old, dusty "vestry cupboard" overcrammed with things no longer needed. He said that he was "really struck" by the Church's efforts to make things "look clean and tidy", when underneath is "chaos, confusion and even corruption". He said he is still a Christian but has "lost faith" in the Church of England to reform itself.
Dr Percy criticised Church law as "out of touch" with employment and human rights law, and Church safeguarding as a "catastrophic mess", with too many conflicts of interest and conflation of power and authority.
He echoed Ozanne's concerns about the Church's failure to solve issues like same-sex marriage, and said the bishops in the Lords are "highly problematic" as they should be there on merit rather than appointed by right.
He said "parliament must act" to repeal the Church's privileges and that it would not take much time to set things in motion.
Finally, quoting Michael Caine in The Italian Job, he said the solution to the 'vestry cupboard' of the established church is to "blow the bloody doors off".
Polly Toynbee: Coronation a "turning point" for the established Church
The final speaker, writer and broadcaster Polly Toynbee, said the coronation was a 'shocking wake up moment' for many people, who were left "gobsmacked" by the highly religious and "peculiar" nature of the ceremony and the vows King Charles took to maintain "the Laws of God" and the "Protestant Reformed Religion established by law". She pointed out this meant the archbishop "had more powers than the King did", and that the coronation was therefore "quite a turning point" in making disestablishment relevant.
Toynbee highlighted how the Church's privileges support state-funded Church of England faith schools, many of which are "socially selective" due to their religiously discriminatory admissions policies, and the law requiring collective worship in all schools.
She criticised the bishops using their privileges in parliament to oppose a range of social reforms, including same sex marriage and assisted dying. She stressed that we have to remember the Church still has an "enormous impact on how we live and how we die".
NSS chief executive" "Really heartening to see a growing 'broad church' in favour of replacing privilege with equality"
NSS chief executive Stephen Evans, who chaired the event, said: "This discussion not only emphasised why it is more important than ever to disestablish the Church of England – it demonstrated that the appetite for separation of church and state is growing among Brits of all religions and beliefs.
"It is really heartening to see a growing 'broad church' in favour of replacing privilege with equality. And our excellent speakers last night embodied this perfectly.
"A huge thank you to Tommy Sheppard, Jayne Ozanne, Martyn Percy and Polly Toynbee for so eloquently putting into words what increasing numbers of individuals, both within and outside of the Church, are thinking."
Image: (From left): Martyn Percy, Tommy Sheppard, Stephen Evans and Jayne Ozanne
NSS welcomes council’s plan to end prayers in meetings
Posted: Fri, 10 Dec 2021 09:40
The National Secular Society has welcomed a town council's plan to move away from holding prayers before meetings.
Congleton Town Council voted to adopt a new civic protocol that will allow for council meetings to be conducted in an entirely secular manner in October.
The motion for the new protocol was proposed by Cllr Suzy Firkin, who contacted the NSS in March for advice.
Currently, a chaplain appointed by the mayor leads the prayers and other civic services, including Remembrance Day.
The new protocol says the mayor "may choose" to select a chaplain who may be of a "specific faith, inter-faith or a pastoral leader or celebrant of no faith".
It says the decision to hold a prayer or period of reflection at the start of council meetings "is the choice of the incumbent Mayor and is not mandatory."
The current mayor, Cllr Denis Murphy, and his chaplain will remain in their positions until May 2022. The deputy mayor, Cllr Margaret Gartside, will then be promoted to the town mayorship, and plans to replace the prayers with a moment of reflection.
Councillor Firkin has said that these "simple statements can now pave the way to creating a meaningful but contemporary mayoralty". She further added that this "will help to encourage a new generation of councillors and a community that are engaged with local politics".
The adoption of the new civic protocol brings the council in line with a recent decision at its parent authority Cheshire East County Council to remove the requirement for formal prayers at the beginning of each council meeting.
Several local authorities in England begin their meetings with prayer as part of their official business, although others recognise that the practice is inappropriate. A recent example is Isle of Wight Council's decision to end the practice of prayers at the beginning of each council meeting in May.
The NSS argues against the imposition of acts of worship in council and parliamentary meetings.
Chief Executive of the NSS, Stephen Evans, welcomed the Congleton Town Council's decision to scrap the prayers from next year.
"Council meetings should be equally inclusive of all participants. Opening meetings with prayers is exclusionary of non-religious people and those who follow other faiths. Congleton Town Council's decision acknowledges the benefits of there being a separation of religion from civic affairs and the state, particularly important when the majority of UK citizens have no religion".
