Humanist & Secularist Liberal Democrats

Immediately after Conference voted to adopt its new faith schools policy, we started work on our response to the party's more general education policy consultation.

We presented our submission just 14 days later, on 2nd April 2017.

Our response calls for democratic accountability to be returned to local communities, by giving local authorities or equivalent elected bodies strategic responsibility for the state schools in their areas and oversight of school admissions policies.

THE ROLE OF FAITH IN STATE-FUNDED SCHOOLS

Conference believes that:

A. Religious communities make a valuable contribution to the cultural life of the UK, and religious organisations have played a major historic role in broadening access to education.

B. Children should not be taught to hold or to reject religious or non-religious beliefs against the wishes of their parents, and religious instruction should not be funded by the state.

The Liberal Democrats have a new policy on state-funded faith schools - and it calls for the phasing out of faith-based selection over six years.

The policy was voted for by an overwhelming majority on Sunday 19th March 2017, at Federal Conference in York.

It largely brings together and updates existing policy, with two major changes being the focus of the debate:

Spring Conference in York will definitely be debating faith schools, on the morning of Sunday 19th March.

So by coming to conference, speaking and voting in the debate, you can help to decide our party's policy on faith schools for the coming years.

Our Fringe meeting on the Friday (details in accompanying article) will give an ideal opportunity to examine the issues and prepare for the debate.

While you're at Spring Conference, why not catch the Conference Rally on the Friday and then come to our fringe meeting on Faith Schools, Faith Admissions and Liberal Democracy, organised jointly with the Liberal Democrat Education Association.

It will be your chance to hear all sides of the discussion, and share your views, before the formal debate on faith schools.

HSLD's membership is set to hit a record level for the third year running.

January's Executive Committee meeting will hear a report that it stands at 159 members (148 current, 11 pending).

That puts us on course to achieve a total for our accounting year well up on the 148 for 2015-16 and 133 for 2014-15.

The 2016 Federal Elections results were announced on 17th December, and six of our members were successfully elected:

FEDERAL BOARD: Helen Flynn, Caron Lindsay and Gordon Lishman.

FEDERAL CONFERENCE COMMITTEE: Zoe O'Connell and Jennie Rigg.

Delegation to the ALLIANCE OF LIBERALS AND DEMOCRATS FOR EUROPE (ALDE): Peter Price.

[This article has been updated with the election results]

The 2016 Federal Elections took place in December, and we invited all HSLD members who are candidates in the elections to submit a statement of up to 250 words.

We received statements for the following elections:

• Federal Board
  • Helen Flynn [ELECTED], Caron Lindsay [ELECTED], Gordon Lishman [ELECTED]
• Federal Conference Committee
  • Zoe O'Connell [ELECTED], Jennie Rigg [ELECTED], Joe Otten,
• Federal Policy Committee
  • Michael Kilpatrick, Gordon Lishman [eliminated due to election to Federal Board]
• Delegation to the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE)
  • Peter Price [ELECTED]

We learned this week of the loss of one of this group's founders, Mike Quinton. Mike died peacefully in a Lancaster nursing home on November 7, 2016, aged 85 years.

Mike did more than anyone else to organise the long-standing humanist and secularist tradition in the party into a recognised group, and he leaves as a legacy the longest established and arguably the most successful humanist group in any of the UK parties.

Candidates in the upcoming elections for the party's various Federal bodies who are also HSLD members are being invited to make a short statement which will go out to all our members and supporters.

We are also inviting all candidates for the Party Presidency to make a statement.

We'll aim to publish the statements on this website on Monday November 21.