House of Lords debate the non-religious

Peers, sitting in the UK's upper chamber this morning will debate the position of the non-religious in Britain today. In contrast to an increasingly faith-based approach by government, Lord Harrison of Chester, a member of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group has called the debate to highlight how the majority non-religious in Britain are affected by policy.

Polls and surveys consistently show that many if not most people in the UK do not define themselves as religious. 63% of people in an ICM poll last December said they were not religious, and a survey of 12-19 year olds for the DfES in 2004 showed 65% saying they were not religious. Only a minority of marriages are religious ones, most people are not baptised, fewer than a million people go to church each week, and in a MORI poll last year, the domestic group most people thought had too much influence on government was ‘religious groups and leaders’.
(poll results and notes)

For the last ten years, however, the Government has privileged religion and religious representatives, including financial incentives for religious schools and Bishops sitting in the unelected House of Lords.

Welcoming the debate, the British Humanist Association Chief Executive Hanne Stinson said, "A proper consideration of these issues is long overdue".

It might seem a little wishy-washy as debates go "Debate: on those who profess no religion" but I suppose it's a start...



UPDATE
Clicketty for the Hansard transcript. It's generally that rarest of things - a debate about religion that remains courteous at all times. Just reading it gives me a rather warm glow about the upper chamber, outdated anachronism or not, they've got class. As Baroness Carnegy of Lour notes rather archly "the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, is one of the more perspicacious Members of your Lordships’ House"

There is a total "Though for the Day" headscratcher moment from the Archbishop of York, which is either a trite joke fallen flat or he really is a twat.

"Twenty-seven years ago I was chaplain to a young offenders remand centre, Latchmere House. Every inmate was asked to declare his religious affiliation, and four young men were registered as having no religion. One Sunday, all the inmates were offered the chance to go to worship. The four young men with no religion declined the offer, while their fellow inmates on the A wing took up the offer. The prison officer, not wanting the four men to remain locked up in their cells, asked them to clean the toilets on the wing. The following Sunday, our four non-religious young men took up the offer to go to worship. The prison officer was puzzled why they had opted in this week. “Why are you going to chapel?” he asked. The four replied, “Sir, we didn’t like the ‘No Religion’ place of worship”. Crudely as they put it, those four young men were saying in their naivety that we are all essentially religious."

Buh? Wah?