Crispin Blunt (Con, Reigate) moaned to Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle that non-religious types (he was speaking of himself) who don't turn up early for morning prayers in the Chamber and bag their seat don't get a look in. The Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group calls for the process of selecting MPs’ seats to be urgently reviewed to ensure that it is fair and democratic.
Each day in each house of Parliament starts with prayers.
In the Commons, MPs who attend prayers are then able to put a ‘prayer card’ in a seat to reserve it for the rest of the day.
Other MPs are only able to do likewise if they can excuse themselves from prayers due to having to attend committee business.
MPs who don’t wish to attend prayers nor have a committee to attend must either sit through prayers or potentially miss out on the ability to get a seat.
This could stop them from being able to contribute to key debates, particularly because there are 427 seats in the Commons to 650 MPs.
The Conservative benches have around 150 fewer seats than MPs. Not sitting in the chamber makes it harder to get selected to ask a question, especially during busy debates such as prime minister’s questions.
Speaking at the end of prime minister’s questions, Crispin Blunt said: ‘As someone who no longer has a relationship with God in a way that would be recognised by many, those of us who don’t have faith or subscribe to faiths other than the established Church are required to take part in prayers in order to secure a place… Mr Speaker, could you ask the doorkeepers, in advance of the committees being formed, for those of us who don’t want to take part, and don’t want to have to sit during prayers in order to secure a place available, and could you also ask the Procedure Committee, to look again at this issue in the next Parliament, so that those of us who find this uncomfortable aren’t placed in this position?’
The Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, agrees the "the matter needs to be taken up".
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