Religious majority

SIR – In your news item “Parents should not be allowed to opt children out of RE classes” (July 18), you report that Charles Clarke and Linda Woodhead want a new settlement renaming Religious Education as “Religion, Belief and Values”, on the grounds that most people in England now say they have no religion.

Our only comprehensive and reliable figures on this come from the 2011 census. These show that 67.1 per cent of the population, responding to a voluntary question, declared some kind of religious affiliation; 7.2 per cent did not answer, and the rest (25.7 per cent) said they had no religion.

Even within the last category, as Professor Woodhead has admitted, “nones” do not necessarily mean people with no religious or spiritual beliefs at all, but those who are not affiliated to a religious organisation. Only some of this category would lack any religious belief.

On closer examination, therefore, the claim that the majority of people have no religion evaporates and the case for maintaining the current legal arrangements for the teaching of Religious Education remains strong. Guy Hordern

Rt Rev Michael Nazir-ali

The Ven Norman Russell and six others: see telegraph.co.uk Christian Coalition for Education London W1