The British Humanist Association's Submission to the Joint Committee of both Houses on the reform of the House of Lords The case against ex-officio representation of the Church of England and representation of other religious faiths in the reformed House of Lords The British Humanist Association (BHA) is the principal organisation representing the interests of the large and growing population of ethically concerned but non-religious people living in the UK. It exists to support and represent people who seek to live good and responsible lives without religious or superstitious beliefs. It is committed to human rights and democracy, and has a long history of active engagement in work for an open and inclusive society. The BHA's policies are informed by its members, who include eminent authorities in many fields, and by other specialists and experts who share humanist values and concerns. These include a Humanist Philosophers' Group, a body composed of academic philosophers whose purpose is to promote a critical, rational and humanist approach to public and ethical issues. A copy of the BHA response to the consultation paper The House of Lords - Completing the Reform is enclosed: it provides our general views on the reform of the Lords, including that the House should be wholly or largely elected. The purpose of this memorandum is to draw the Joint Committee's attention to the case against ex officio seats in the reformed House for Bishops of the Church of England and, more generally, against any representation as of right for any religion. 1. The British Humanist Association is deeply committed to support for an inclusive society, with individual freedom of belief and speech, and with the government and official bodies maintaining a disinterested impartiality towards the many groups within society so long as they conform to the minimum conventions of the society. While we seek to promote the Humanist life-stance as an alternative to (among others) religious beliefs, we do not seek any privilege in doing so but rely on the persuasiveness of our arguments and the attractiveness of our position. 2. Correspondingly, while we recognise and respect the deep commitment of other people to religious and other non-humanist views, we reject any claims they may make to privileged positions by virtue of their beliefs. We also reject the sort of social structure found in several European countries which are organised on confessional lines with taxes distributed to a limited number of religious and (sometimes) Humanist bodies, and with some social services provided through such bodies. We reject it because it favours a selected group of dominant beliefs and tends to ossify society around them. It places artificial limits on choices; bolsters the historically and conventionally dominant group, and subsidises it by virtue of its default position long after it has lost the genuine support of the majority of its nominal adherents. Page 1 of 6
3. We oppose the present privileged position of the Church of England and of Christianity in any context. Despite the liberties and democratic rights enjoyed by people in the United Kingdom, our unwritten constitution remains a residual theocracy, with the establishment of the Church of England, places reserved for Bishops in the House of Lords, the privileged position of religion and Christianity in particular in the school system and curriculum, and a long list of minor privileges. 4. We therefore reject any continuation of the right of Church of England Bishops to sit in the reformed second house of the legislature a privilege that would surely be open to challenge under the Human Rights Act. 5. We also oppose any extension of religious privilege to (a limited list of) other religions or to other Christian denominations. While to do so might address aspects of existing discrimination between religious beliefs, it only serves to replace it with discrimination against those who have no religious beliefs, and this too would be open to challenge under the Human Rights Act. 1 6. In this view we are in agreement not only with the House of Commons Public Administration Committee, which unanimously rejected seats as of right for Bishops, but also with the great majority (71%) of those who expressed a view in response to the Lord Chancellor's consultation document (56% wanted no Bishops, and 15% wanted them only as individual appointments through the appointments procedure). If those who did not specifically mention Bishops but wanted a wholly elected House are included, 90% of respondents were against Bishops having any seats as of right. (If those - like the BHA - willing to see Bishops appointed on their merits as individuals rather than ex officio are excluded, the figure falls to 85%, as given in the official summary of responses.) 7. The case for the Church of England continuing to have reserved seats in the legislature is based partly on history and tradition (which is not an acceptable justification for privilege in a reformed House) and partly on claims that they bring a unique ethical and spiritual insight to the affairs of the House. The latter argument is offensive to people of other religious and non-religious beliefs. It suggests that Bishops are uniquely qualified to provide this insight, whereas people from many walks of life and from many religions, and none, are equally qualified moral philosophers and experts in medical ethics for example. It suggests that Bishops, given this unique remit, can speak for the whole population, whereas their views are frequently controversial and often rejected by people with equally deeply held religious, moral or philosophical convictions. It ignores the fact that the Bishops only represent England. It entrenches a privileged position not just for Christianity, but specifically for one particular branch of that religion. This cannot be justified in today's multi-faith and increasingly non-religious society. 1 http://www.ecclawsoc.org.uk/case_cgr.html Following Arrowsmith v UK (1978) 3 EHRR 110 and Kokkinakis v Greece (1994) 17 EHRR 397, Article 9 embraced not only religious beliefs but also nonreligious beliefs and humanist beliefs see C v UK (1983) 37 DR 142. Page 2 of 6
8. The Anglican Church claims only 1,650,000 members in the UK and its Sunday services are attended by no more than around 1.9% of the adult population. Only 12% of the adult population are members of any church; and while 65% claim to be Christian and about 6% adhere to other religions, almost 30% disclaim any religious belief. 2 9. The Royal Commission recommended that the second chamber should continue to include people who can articulate "a range of philosophical, moral and spiritual viewpoints, both religious and secular" (recommendation 107), and conceded that 'professional' adherents of a religion were not the only persons suited to bring these insights to the second chamber. The BHA endorses both these points. Insofar as the chamber is not elected, those responsible for appointments should seek members who can stand back from the political and economic concerns that will usually be foremost in the House's considerations and provide a reflective view based on deeply held "philosophical, moral and spiritual" principles. 10. Regrettably, the Royal Commission - and the Government in its wake - then recommended, with little or no examination, that Bishops continue to sit in the legislature as of right, albeit in reduced numbers. They suggested that other Christian churches and non-christian religions should also be represented, but by individual appointment rather than by right. They failed to carry out any elementary analysis of the sort conducted by Professor Iain McLean, the professor of politics from Nuffield College, Oxford, who has shown (see Annex) that, with 16 Anglican Bishops, avoidance of discrimination would require a total of about 77 religious representatives in the House - a quite ludicrous disproportion that still leaves the non-religious sector of the community unrepresented. It would, of course, also have the inevitable side effect of adding to the bias against women in the membership of the House. 11. Moreover, many churches and non-christian religions have no clear hierarchy or means of nominating representatives, and Roman Catholic clergy are, we understand, specifically debarred by their church from participation in the legislature. There is also a considerable body of evidence showing that the leaders of many religions are not in fact representative of their communities. They hold significantly more conservative views than their membership, and in several religions and denominations, women in particular feel that their views are not represented by the leadership. 12. These practical arguments are compelling, but even more important than these practical considerations is the argument that any attempt, whether by ex officio seats or by instructions to any appointments commission, to provide representation as of right to religious groups in the legislature is objectionable in principle. Any religious representation as a right would be discriminatory. It would also be contrary to the requirements of an open and inclusive society, and, as society moves towards increasingly non-religious (but no less moral) beliefs, would fix the structure of the second chamber in the past. 2 Religious Trends, 2002/03; some surveys give much higher figures for unbelief. Page 3 of 6
13. The second chamber should not entrench tradition and privilege, but should be representative of the population of the UK, and include people from the full spectrum of religious and non-religious belief. This should be achieved either through a wholly elected second chamber, or through giving an appropriately broad and nondiscriminatory remit to those responsible for appointments. British Humanist Association August 2002 Page 4 of 6
ANNEX Extracts from papers by Professor Iain McLean, professor of politics, Nuffield College, Oxford A. From his original paper on Lords reform: 39. I do not think that the SC [second chamber] should contain: Ex officio representatives of one, or more than one, religion; Ex officio members of the supreme judicial body of the UK. 40. The choices for the SC are that it should recognise all religions (above some size threshold) or that it should recognise none. There are both practical and principled objections to any attempt to recognise all religions. 41. There will probably be religious affiliation questions in the 2001 Census. These questions may, at least in principle, solve the question of how many SC members each religion should be allocated (assuming that a block of seats in the SC was reserved for religious representatives). They will go nowhere towards solving the problem of how each religion should choose its representatives. For instance, no one body speaks for all UK Moslems, or all UK Jews, or all UK Hindus. It would be possible for each elector to be able to declare him/herself a member of a recognised religion and then to vote in the constituency of that religion in SC elections. I expect that many of the UK's spiritual leaders would be too unhappy with such a constitutionalisation of religion for such a scheme to have any legitimacy. 42. All schemes of religious representation confront the problem of fair representation of those who declare that they have no religion. 43. I believe these problems are insuperable, therefore I think that the SC should contain no reserved places for religious communities. B. From his paper on the Government proposals for the Lords: B5.... Table 2 shows the relative size of the UK's faith communities. If the Church of England is assigned 16 representatives (whether by ex officio Bishops or otherwise), then a total of 77 senators will be needed to represent all faith communities. Many of them will have to be female, whatever the wishes of the faith community in question, to satisfy the gender requirement. At worst, this could leave the Appointments Commission with only 53 crossbench places to fill with representatives of anything other than faith communities. Page 5 of 6
Table 2. Faith communities in the UK N (000) % of total Entitlement to seats Christian Anglican 1654 20.89 % 16 Catholic 1768 22.33 % 17 Free Churches 1278 16.14 % 12 Presbyterian 989 12.49 % 10 Orthodox 235 2.97 % 2 Non-Trinitarian 533 6.73 % 5 Buddhist 50 0.63 % 0 Hindu 165 2.08 % 2 Jewish 95 1.20 % 1 Muslim 665 8.40 % 6 Sikh 400 5.05 % 4 Others 85 1.07 % 1 TOTAL 7917 77 Source of column 1: Office of National Statistics, UK 2002, Table 15.1 Column 3 is derived by comparing the relative size of each faith community to that of the Church of England, for which the White Paper proposes 16 reserved seats. C1. There is no good argument for retaining either Bishops of the Church of England or the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary in the senate. C2. Contrary to the claim in the Royal Commission Report (Cm 4534, 15:9), the presence of the Church of England Bishops in the House of Lords has not always promoted 'ever greater religious tolerance and inclusiveness'. A dispassionate historian would have to say that until the 20th century it did just the opposite. Between 1893 and 1914, the Bishops voted en masse against Irish Home Rule and Welsh Disestablishment. As they were disestablished in Ireland in 1869, it is hard to see how they felt entitled to vote at all on Home Rule; and in Wales, their denomination was a small minority sect. If faith communities are to be represented in proportion to size, then the Church of England should have approximately 21% of those seats. Nothing in Cm 4534 or in the White Paper explains why the ex officio representation should remain. Page 6 of 6