In the small print of the Government’s consultative document on the implementation of the European Directives on Race and Employment it is stated:

 ‘The new legislation should prohibit discrimination on the grounds of “religion or belief”…except to say that belief should be taken to refer to a religious or similar belief, and not a political belief.’

Official Labour Party policy is only to employ those who are Party members, and that is the way they are planning to keep it.
In response to this proposed legislation, the Faithworks Movement has launched the Keep the Faith Campaign. The campaign is a clarion call to Government to implement legislation which, whilst holding churches and other faith organisations to account over the fair treatment of their staff, will unambiguously protect their right to retain their core ethos and values.

Speaking on this issue recently, the Rev. Steve Chalke, Faithworks Founder and spokesman said:

“We understand the Government’s justifiable desire to protect the ethos of the Labour Party. It is the shared beliefs and values of their staff which create the resolve and unity that would be impossible within a workforce of dramatically divergent views. However, this situation is paralleled exactly in churches and other faith-based organisations. The crime is that politicians are planning to reserve for themselves and their political organisations an exemption from the Directive, which they are refusing to apply to others. This is a blatant case of double standards.

Last May Tony Blair said, in a pre-election speech which endorsed the community work of churches and faith groups: ‘You do this because of your faith, not in isolation from it, a point that government – central and local – must always appreciate’. Now is the time for government to legislate in accordance with that pre-election commitment.”

In its consultation document the Government states that it will ensure that churches and other organisations with a faith-based ethos ‘can continue to recruit staff of the same religion or belief where that is necessary to enable the preservation of that ethos.’ But the question is who decides what is ‘necessary’? The Government’s current answer is clear. It will be ‘up to each organisation to consider…which of their posts need to be held by believers in order to preserve their ethos, particularly where ancillary or support staff are involved.’ Such organisations will then have to ‘satisfy Employment Tribunals that…their particular recruitment or staffing policies could be justified.’

While committed, by virtue of their faith, to serve all unconditionally and without discrimination, the Faithworks Movement believes that churches and Christian charities must be reassured that their freedom to pursue employment policies which allow them to effectively deliver the services needed in their communities will be retained.