Derbyshire County Council fornally re-introduce prayers to constitution
Prayers have been formally reintroduced to Derbyshire County Council’s constitution by Reform UK, despite opposition over the need to separate religion and government.
Council chiefs took the step during a Derbyshire County Council meeting on October 7.
It is now mandated that these will take place at the start of all “ordinary” full council meetings, but not at emergency meetings, committees or annual meetings.
Reform UK reintroduced prayer at their meetings from their first full council session last May but now this has been formalised until such a time as another administration should seek to remove it.
This follows individual election pledges from Reform, which did not have a Derbyshire manifesto, to overturn the “undermining and mocking of British and Christian culture” and stressing “we are a Christian nation”, with one saying it was one of his key priorities to build a church in his division.
However Coun Ed Fordham, former Liberal Democrat group leader, said he felt the move was not needed.
He said: “To bring together religion and politics seems to me to be a dangerous thing. We are here to judge on how to improve services and how to improve the lives of all our residents.
“I do not believe, as a worship leader myself, that having a period of time at the beginning of a meeting for an individual councillor to bring forward their prayer and for the rest of us to be expected to sit through that I do not believe that improves the lives of our residents. I do not believe it improves services.
“The right to not sit through an act of worship is one long fought for and indeed died for in this country. Bringing that into this chamber is not wise, nor helpful, nor right, nor fair.”
Reform councillor Richard Smith welcomed the move and said: “As someone who goes to church regularly, who has faith in the Lord, I think prayer is very important at the start of our meetings.
“I very much am for the prayer. I have had people in my own church come to me and say it is really good what we, as Reform, implemented, having prayer at the start of a meeting, and we need to be carrying on with the prayer.
“I know people here, who I fully respect, don’t have a faith, and I fully appreciate that, and it is very nice to see them guys coming up to us and saying actually what we are doing is really good.”
The 2021 Derbyshire Census – excluding Derby – detailed that 47.8 per cent of the population identify as Christian, followed by 44.6 per cent saying they were not religious.