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British Humanist Association: Reports

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Harrison for the opportunity to discuss these very relevant reports produced by the British Humanist Association. This is indeed a timely debate, with a new Equality Bill now before Parliament. During consideration of that Bill, secularist Members of your Lordships’ House have expressed concerns about the employment practices of religious groups contracted to provide social services to the public. As we have heard, the BHA report, The Case for Secularism, addresses these and other concerns. However, I will leave the detailed analysis and arguments to fellow humanists who are well represented in this debate. I simply want to make some valedictory remarks, because I am standing down at the end of this Parliament, after serving five years as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group. Noble Lords may be reassured to hear that that group is not motivated by hostility to religion. Indeed, I am pleased to see in her place the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, an active supporter, who often describes herself as a Hindu humanist—and India of course fights to sustain its proud secularist traditions. Our members include Jewish and Christian humanists, including one MP—a practising Anglican—who turns up at our AGMs to ensure that we are not short of the required quorum. This good Christian believes that humanists have an important role to play in Parliament through an all-party group, with the advantages that that brings when booking meetings and communicating with other parliamentarians. However, as one would expect, most of our members are agnostic or atheist. Interestingly, our numbers have more than doubled in recent years, and membership now totals more than 100 MPs and Peers from all major parties and the Cross Benches in your Lordships’ House. This growth in numbers and the more active contribution of humanists in Parliament owe a great deal to the work of the British Humanist Association, including the reports that we are debating, and I want to outline some of that activity and support. First, let me make clear that the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group is not formally affiliated to the BHA, nor is it signed up to all its priorities. As I hope noble Lords will have gathered, ours is a loose grouping that is able to accommodate all the idiosyncrasies that flourish here in Westminster. That said, on behalf of my humanist colleagues, I thank the BHA for the quality of its briefings produced in the first half of this Parliament by Andrew Copson, and latterly by Naomi Phillips. I also congratulate Mr Copson on his recent appointment as chief executive of the British Humanist Association. The BHA’s thorough research helped many of us to make informed and better-argued contributions to debates, particularly on complex ethical issues which arise in this House by the year. In the field of human rights, the BHA also helped us to refine the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, the Equality Act 2006 and, of course, the current Equality Bill, which I trust will be passed in the last days of this Parliament without too much compromise. Some noble Lords with whom we have differed may feel that we humanists have had too much to say in controversies about education, but we make no apology for trying to improve the teaching on sex in schools, nor for our opposition to the teaching of creationism as science. Most importantly, with briefing from the BHA, we were able to monitor and question some of the policies and practices of faith schools. In this contentious area, noble Lords should be aware that religious groups also support a secular approach to schooling. The BHA is a partner in the Accord Coalition, which advocates inclusive schools and is, in fact, chaired by a rabbi, Dr Jonathan Romain. Indeed, the BHA’s wider work makes it increasingly active across communities by consulting and co-operating with national and local government, broadcasters and public agencies. Like our All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group, the BHA also takes an ecumenical approach to politics. I spoke on the Labour Humanists Group platform at our Brighton party conference. I am told that the Liberal Democrat humanists staged a successful event at their party conference. There is now a Green Party humanist group, and I am particularly pleased to hear that there is a flourishing Conservative humanist group. All of this helps to explain why membership of the British Humanist Association has grown significantly in recent years and it now has a total of around 20,000 members. Recruitment was probably boosted last year by the widespread celebration of the bicentenary of Charles Darwin, which also merited a debate here in your Lordships’ House. An Early Day Motion calling for Darwin Day to become a public holiday was put down in the House of Commons. I recall it with some sadness, because the EDM was sponsored by our colleague in the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group, Ashok Kumar. As the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, told us, Ashok died earlier this week. He was a much-loved Member and will be much missed. All of us mourn his tragic death and our condolences go out to his brother Ravi and the Kumar family. Ashok Kumar was also a scientist, and no doubt appreciated the observation made in the 18th century by the father of economics, Adam Smith, that, ""Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition"." It seems very fitting that Adam Smith’s portrait should now ornament our banknotes, complementing that of Her Majesty, Defender of the Faith. That is a very British juxtaposition that Adam Smith’s friend and enlightenment philosopher, David Hume, an atheist icon, would surely have enjoyed. I therefore conclude in the spirit of British enlightenment to which humanists and Christians contributed so much, with the hope that we can again find a common cause to advance a shared tradition of rational debate and tolerance in the defence of human rights and the pursuit of social justice. Naturally, in today’s Britain, we humanists would hope to work more closely with enlightened followers of all religions. I hope therefore that our All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group, under a new chair in the next Parliament, can find ways of bringing together parliamentarians of all faiths and none to advance common agendas, based on mutual respect and at least some shared values.