Separating church and state

There is no established church in Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, the Church of Scotland is considered the ‘national church’, with the monarch being its head. This is an issue our sister charity Humanist Society Scotland works on. But it doesn’t have any non-ceremonial consequences, like the establishment of the Church of England does.

We advocate for disestablishment and the creation of a secular UK, guaranteeing equal treatment for everyone, regardless of religion or belief. This means creating a level playing field for everyone, and so we campaign to see the inequalities associated with having an established religion removed. We also campaign for removing the right of 26 bishops to sit as of right in the House of Lords, for religious practices in Parliament, such as prayers before the start of business, to be made inclusive for all, and for appointments or elections to the chamber to be made based on secular reasons.

In depth

Bishops in the House of Lords

The automatic presence of the bishops in the House of Lords is not just a harmless legacy of a medieval constitution but a present example of discrimination, religious privilege, and undemocratic politics.

We campaign for a secular state with inclusive, shared public institutions so that everyone is treated equally, regardless of religion or belief. As a result, we campaign to see the bishops no longer have an automatic right to seats. If religious representatives wish to be in the House of Lords they should seek to gain representation through the same channels as everyone else. In whatever future package of Lords reform comes before Parliament, we are determined to see the Lords Spiritual removed.

The presence of the Church of England in the House of Lords entrenches a privileged position for one particular branch of one religion. This cannot be justified in today’s society, which is not only multi-faith but majority non-religious according to the British Social Attitudes Survey. It is at odds with the aspiration for a more legitimate and representative second chamber and with affirmation of a plural society.

The public overwhelmingly agrees that bishops should not automatically be granted a right to sit in the House of Lords. A 2017 YouGov poll for The Times found that 62% of British adults think that no religious clerics should have ‘an automatic right to seats’. Only 8% support the status quo, with a further 12% supporting adding leaders of other faiths alongside the bishops.

In the Isle of Man, while the Bishop of Sodor and Man still has an automatic seat in Tynwald’s Legislative Council, the bishop’s right to vote has now been removed, ending one aspect of that religious privilege. But the bishop’s continued ex officio presence still reserves a place in the legislature for one Church of England office-holder alone. The situation in Jersey, is very similar, where the Dean of Jersey still has an automatic seat in the States Assembly, but they no longer have a vote.

Disestablishment

Although it has been disestablished in Wales and Northern Ireland, the Anglican Church is still the state church of England. Similarly the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland is recognised as the national church of Scotland. We wish to see both churches fully disestablished.

Establishment is often used to justify discrimination in education (for example, through religious schools and daily Christian worship in other schools), in the UK Parliament (for example, Church of England bishops automatically gain 26 seats in the House of Lords), and in public service provision (for instance, in Anglican acts of worship being shown so frequently in public broadcasting). All of this is simply not fair in today’s modern, diverse society. Disestablishment would include a separation of church and state so that the head of state (the monarch) is not also head of the Church of England, and an end to other constitutional entanglements between church and state.

This does not mean the monarch has to also be removed as head of state. Other European countries have a monarch but no established church. These are Andorra, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.

An established church becomes less justifiable as the proportion of the population who are Christian continues to fall. As above, most people nowadays are non-religious. Since 2014, fewer people have attended Church of England churches each week than there are children in state-funded Church of England schools. All those children are mandated by law to take part in Anglican collective worship every day.

Public opinion supports disestablishment too. According to a 2013 YouGov survey, just 27% of British adults think that ‘the connection between the Church of England and the State should continue’, while 51% think ‘the Church should be separated from the State’.

Prayers in parliament
Currently each day in the Commons starts with Anglican prayers, even though most people are non-religious and this is the most non-religious Parliament ever. This is made worse by the system of prayer cards. MPs who attend prayers can use a prayer card to reserve their seat for the rest of the day. As there are only 427 seats for 650 MPs this means on busy days such as Prime Minister’s Questions those MPs who don’t attend prayers and their constituents are at a disadvantage as those MPs who are left standing are much less likely to be picked by the speaker to contribute. No parliamentarian should be put at a democratic disadvantage because of their religion or belief.

In 2024, the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group (APPHG), which brings together over 120 non-religious MPs and peers, submitted evidence to the Modernisation Committee of the House of Commons to ask for the removal of the ‘prayer privilege’, and supported many current and former MPs to do the same.

Some Labour MPs have begun to informally drop using the prayer card system as it was perceived to be ‘outdated’ and MPs called for an end to parliamentary prayers in an Early Day Motion.

Unfortunately, the Leader of the House of Commons has ruled out a review of parliamentary prayers.

Pastoral care
The Speaker’s Chaplain is an Anglican priest appointed to provide pastoral care to MPs and lead daily prayers. They are meant meet the pastoral needs of all MPs, many MPs report that they do not feel they can do so for them, given the Anglican nature of the provision. In hospitals and prisons, what has in the past been exclusively Anglican provision has in recent years moved towards having different religious chaplains as well as humanist pastoral carers.

What we mean by ‘secularism’

‘Secularism’ can mean different things to different people. We use it to mean separation of church and state and equal treatment for all, regardless of religion or belief. Someone who supports secularism is a ‘secularist’, hence Humanists UK is a secularist organisation.

The term ‘secular’ is occasionally used to mean something that is atheistic or agnostic, and more frequently is used analogously to ‘secularist’, but the most common meaning is something that is simply not connected with religion or belief – for example, the Natural History Museum is a secular institution in this sense. When we say something is ‘secular’ this is what we mean, as we think using it in this way is the clearest.
‘Secularisation’ is the process by which something, in particular society, becomes more secular (which might also mean it is becoming less religious but does not have to), while ‘secularity’ is the state of being secular.

What we’re doing

• We supported MPs and peers in the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group (APPHG) and beyond to call for the removal of the automatic right for bishops to sit in the House of Lords during the passage of the Government’s House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill. This Bill narrowly seeks to remove hereditary peers from the Lords.
• In the Commons, cross-party MPs raised bishops during the Bill’s Second Reading in 2024, and we later supported MPs to put forward amendments to remove the automatic right for bishops to sit in the Lords. However, the amendments were defeated due to the Government’s concern about widening the scope of the narrow Bill.
• When the Bill arrived in the Lords, we supported peers from across the chamber to raise concerns during its second reading, and worked with high-profile peer Baroness Harman to put forward an amendment to end the automatic right of bishops to sit in the Lords. While this garnered significant media attention, attempts to amend the Bill failed for similar reasons to in the Commons.
• We also supported peers to raise concerns about bishops during a debate on Lords reform in 2024. Nine spoke up about removing bishops from the Lords, with only one peer defending their place.
• We succeeded in securing peers to raise concerns regarding automatic places for bishops during the passing of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Act 2025, which extends preference for women bishops entering the Lords over male bishops from 2025 to 2030.
• We have been actively calling for an end to parliamentary prayers. In 2024, we urged for prayers to be replaced with an inclusive alternative in response to a call for evidence by the Modernisation Committee which reviews the practices of the House of Commons. The APPHG called for this in its response. Following the announcement by Commons Leader Lucy Powell MP that ruled out a review of parliamentary prayers, we wrote to her to request this be reconsidered.
• In 2025 we welcomed news that some Labour MPs have begun informally taking approaches to minimise the impact of the prayer card reservation system in order to reduce discrimination to those who do not attend Anglican prayers at the start of each day. We supported a motion to end prayers as formal business put forward in early 2025.

Appendix: Past work on this issue

• We have long argued for the removal of the right of bishops to sit in the House of Lords. In 2011, during the last major proposals on reform of the Lords, we led the debate with our ‘Holy Redundant’ campaign, calling for the bishops to lose their automatic seats. Ministers working on Lords reform received more correspondence about this issue than any other.
• In 2017 MPs from the APPHG voiced concern in two debates at the bishops’ continuing presence in a House of Commons debate.
• We have also spoken up against proposals that would retain the bishops in a smaller House of Lords, or otherwise. In 2018, we condemned a proposal from the Government’s then Minister for Faith to expand the House of Lords to include (potentially up to 85) clerics of multiple faiths.
• In 2017 we responded to the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the Size of the House’s inquiry and said the presence of Church of England bishops in the House of Lords ‘unfair, unjustified, and unpopular’.
• In 2020 APPHG member Lord Taverne put forward a Private Members’ Bill to remove the right of bishops to vote in the House of Lords.
• Wales Humanists celebrated 100 years of disestablishment in Wales in 2020 with the release of a report on the matter.
• In 2023 we supported the APPHG to organise a backbench debate on the bishops in the House of Lords.
• In 2023 we submitted evidence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s inquiry into membership of the House of Lords calling for the bishops’ removal.
• In 2023 we supported APPHG member Lord Scriven on his Private Members’ Bill to disestablish the Church of England.
• In 2024 we held a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group on Religion in Parliament and examined progress on the Group’s 2020 report Time for Reflection.
• Also in 2024, we called on our members in the Isle of Man to respond to a public consultation to remove the automatic right to vote of the Bishop of Sodor and Man in Tynwald (Manx Parliament).