Plan to allow pupils, 16, to withdraw from worship

Last updated at 16:58 19 July 2006


Secular campaigners today welcomed Government plans to give school pupils aged 16 and above the legal right to withdraw from collective worship.

The National Secular Society described the announcement in the House of Lords by Junior Education Minister Lord Adonis as "very good news indeed".

Keith Porteous Wood, NSS executive director, said: "It has seemed intolerable to us that young people are being forced to worship at school, sometimes against their will.

"It is self-evidently a breach of their human rights. Indeed, it can be argued from a human rights perspective that the age limit for self-exemption should be lower.

"The church is quite happy to allow 14-year-olds to confirm their commitment to Christianity, yet it will not accept that other children of that age can feel equally certain that they don't believe."

Lord Adonis accepted in principle an amendment moved by Liberal Democrat frontbencher Baroness Walmsley during the Education and Inspections Bill's Lords committee stage.

She had argued that 16-year-olds can pay tax, get married and fight for their country yet they cannot refuse to worship.

Lord Adonis told Lady Walmsley: "We accept most of the amendment and I will seek to move an appropriate amendment at report stage."

The announcement comes after a report in the Times Educational Supplement last week about a revolt by a group of pupils at St Luke's College in Bexley, south London, a Catholic sixth-form college, over compulsory attendance at Mass.

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