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Order! Order.

Hello, I'm Alicia McCarthy, and this is today in Parliament from BBC Radio 4 for Friday the 7th of February,

where a peer calls for collective worship in some English state schools to be replaced with assemblies.

Focused on the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of all children.

Also on this programme, a former Conservative leader returns from Ukraine with a question for the West.

When do you ever take a stand over freedom and democracy that it's okay for you but it's not for them

and it won't be for long. And there's concern that the UK doesn't have enough women entrepreneurs.

What potential are we missing out on? What is the economy missing out on as well as individuals

and what is our country missing out on. But first, peers have given initial

approval to a bill which would mean non-religious schools in England would no longer have to

hold daily collective Christian worship. A Lib Dem, Lady Bert, said under her proposals, they would

instead hold assemblies covering things such as environment, health, volunteering, moral issues and equality.

She said the UK was the only Western democracy that legally imposed worship on schools.

In my opinion, school assemblies can be a really good thing.

They should foster a sense of community and promote the moral and social development of pupils.

But he said because assemblies were religious.

Many children are withdrawn from assemblies,

often to be left in corridors or classrooms,

excluded from their peers and without any meaningful equivalent activity.

Lady Bert had backing from Labour's Lord Watson who said the existing law was widely ignored.

A 2022 survey of over 7,500 teachers recorded 66% as saying that their school did not hold collective worship.

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