The BHA has responded to a consultation concerning the government’s plans for the ‘Community Right to Challenge’, a new initiative introduced under the Localism Bill which seeks to open up innumerable local services to ‘community groups’, including religious groups. The response forms part of the BHA’s wider campaign to keep public services shared and secular.
The ‘Community Right to Challenge’ – a key reform under the government’s ‘Big Society’ plans – gives ‘community organisations’ – very widely defined in the Bill and including religious groups of all sizes and denominations – a ‘right’ to bid to run public services in local areas, on behalf of the state.
The BHA’s concern is that, unlike other organisations, religious groups have exemptions under the Equality Act 2010 which means that if they win contracts under the ‘Community Right to Bid’, or any other public commissioning process, to provide public services, they are permitted to discriminate on religious grounds against employees and against service users. There is also nothing to prevent such groups from proselytising when they are providing public services on behalf of the state.
The BHA’s response, sent to members of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group and other MPs, suggests a number of non-legislative and legislative measures which aim to ensure that suitable mechanisms are in place to prevent discrimination.
BHA Head of Public Affairs, Naomi Phillips, commented, ‘This issue is not one of discriminating against religious groups, rather it is one of ensuring that all providers are required to work to the same high equality standards, to ensure that all public service employees are treated equally regardless of their personal beliefs, and to ensure that public services continue to be provided to all, without illegitimate and unnecessary discrimination.’
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For further comment or information, contact Naomi Phillips at Naomi@humanists.uk or 07540 257101.
Read the BHA’s full memorandum of evidence and consultation response form for more details.
The British Humanist Association is the national charity representing and supporting the interests of ethically concerned, non-religious people in the UK. It is the largest organisation in the UK campaigning for an end to religious privilege and to discrimination based on religion or belief, and for a secular state.