Emily Graves spoke with Don Horricks, Head of Public Affairs at the Evangelical Alliance, about the results of the public consultation about the day-to-day experience of believers in Britain today.

Don Horricks

The Evangelical Alliance has called for clarity into the right to express religious beliefs as the Equality and Human Rights Commission sets out widespread confusion of the laws intended to protect them.

This follows the Equality and Human Rights Commission having published the results of their largest ever public consultation regarding the day-to-day experience of believers in Britain today. By far the largest number of responses came from Christians.

According to the Commission the results show that many Christians feared that their religion was losing its place in society and in particular in their workplace. Christians in particular reported that they felt discriminated against when expressing their beliefs at work.

Emily Graves spoke with Don Horricks, Head of Public Affairs at the Evangelical Alliance, to find out more.

Emily: So what is the Equality and Human Rights Commission?

Don: The Equality and Human Rights Commission is a statutory body set up under the Equality Act of 2006, which is independent of Government, or supposed to be independent of Government. It is supposed to regulate the whole area of equality legislation as well as seek to bring some kind of unity amongst diversity. In theory that is what it is supposed to do. In other words it has responsibility for overseeing the basic strands of human rights that apply to race, religion and belief and to a whole series of protected characteristics.

Emily: The largest number of responses actually came from Christians, so what does this show about life today?

Don: Well yes, the Commission wanted to find out, because it singularly failed to look at the religion and beliefs strand of Human Rights over the years of its existence. We have been amongst those who have been pressing them to do something about that and in the end they decided to get something of an evidence base as to the experience of the people of faith in Britain today. They had an open ended consultation, or questionnaire, which they issued that invited people to respond and tell their stories of what it's like to be a person of faith in today's Britain. They published the results of that and the vast majority of people who took it upon themselves to respond to that consultation were Christians.

Emily: Is there an increase in cases being seen, where religion and faith is having a smaller part of everyday life?

Don: Well it's interesting that the survey confirmed that. This is the main finding of the survey, but there is widespread confusion about the law. Christians are amongst those who are confused about the law. In other words, "What can you say" and "What can't you say", "What can you do", "What can't you do", when you want to share your faith in the public arena.

There is a lot of confusion about whether the law is actually being used wrongly to coerce people to be silent, or, to coerce them to speak and to actually do and say things in contravention of their consciences and beliefs. I think the survey showed that there is widespread evidence that there is intimidation and abuse, hostility and discrimination against people of faith.

That's not a surprise to us because we have been warning of this for a long time, but it gives an evidence base for the Commission. We are not very happy about it because it shows that what is being done in connection with people of faith and belief in this country is being tolerated or is being passed over, whereas it wouldn't be tolerated for other protected rights.

Emily: What was your reaction to the Commission when you saw it?

Don: We weren't surprised at all, because as I say, we had been warning about this for some considerable time. We have had many meetings and engagements with them over the years and we continue to do so and it just confirms what we have been telling them. Our response to the Commission has been just confirming what we have been asking them to do for a long time and that is because of the confusion about the law, there needs to be a greater fairness in the way that the law is applied so that people of faith and belief, as well as the other protected strands should all be on a fair playing field together.