Baroness (Lorely) Burt

Member of the House of Lords

Baroness Lorely Burt is a Liberal Democrat peer and Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group (APPHG).  She speaks in Parliament on all forms of ethical and equality issues, but is particularly concerned with inclusion. In this respect, she has worked with Humanists UK and the APPHG to bring several Private Members’ Bills to make school assemblies more inclusive and to include teaching about humanism in RE.

In 2023, she brought forward a Private Member’s Bill to end the discredited and harmful practice of so-called ‘conversion therapy’, a practice that is usually rooted in false and often pseudoscientific religious beliefs about what causes people to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans.

In 2021, Lorely brought forward proposals in the House of Lords to replace compulsory religious worship in English schools with inclusive assemblies.

Speaking at the time, Lorely said:

‘The discriminatory law requiring daily Christian worship in all schools has been in place for more than 75 years. It is not just very outdated, it actively threatens the freedom of belief of millions of children and their families.'

‘I have introduced this Bill because I strongly believe that schools should never impose a particular faith on pupils. Instead, assemblies should be inclusive and suitable for all regardless of their background or beliefs.’

In 2022, she proposed a Bill to rename the English school curriculum subject of Religious Education (RE) to Religion and Worldviews (RW), to make sure that it is taught in a way that is fully inclusive of non-religious worldviews such as humanism.

Lorely was the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Solihull from 2005 to 2015 and was nominated for a life peerage in 2015.