Assisted dying

Probably the major law and religion news of the week was that, on Thursday, Jersey’s States Assembly approved the Draft Assisted Dying (Jersey) Law 2025 by 32 votes to 16. The draft Law is now awaiting Royal Assent – as is the Isle of Man’s Assisted Dying Bill 2023, which was passed by Tynwald almost a year ago, in March 2025. 

Meanwhile at Westminster, the Government has indicated that it will not allocate further time for the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill before the end of the current session in May. With only a limited number of Friday sitting days remaining in the Lords, the Bill seems unlikely to complete its parliamentary stages in time and will therefore fall automatically. 

At Holyrood, MSPs will begin considering amendments to the proposed Scottish legislation on 10 March, with a final vote expected on 17 March.

VAT on private school fees

On Friday, in R (BYL & Anor) v Chancellor of the Exchequer [2026] EWCA Civ 170, the Court of Appeal dismissed a challenge to the imposition of VAT on fees at private schools operated for disadvantaged Charedi Jewish children and for parents wishing their children to follow a strictly Evangelical Christian curriculum. The nub of the application was that “Parliament ought to have carved out an exemption for low-cost schools, particularly religious schools”, but the Court was satisfied that the Government had provided an objective and reasonable justification for declining to do so [184]. We hope to post a note on the judgment in due course – though the claimants have already made it known that they will seek permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. 

Abuse Redress Measure 2025: progress

In answer to a written question from Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury, Lab) asking when the Church of England Redress Scheme will be open to applications, the Second Church Estates Commissioner said this:

“Following the Abuse Redress Measure receiving Royal Assent on the 18th December 2025, the National Church Institutions (NCIs) are finalising the technical operational details before the scheme launches. The NCIs are working with a multi-stakeholder Steering Board, survivors and the scheme’s administrator to put the operational arrangements for the scheme in place, including building and testing the application process and preparing support systems and communications.

The NCIs are working to ensure the scheme launches in 2026 and will provide as much notice as possible via the scheme’s website, where any interested party may register for updates: www.redresscofe.org/w/webpage/registration.”

Religious slaughter again

On Tuesday, Esther McVey (Tatton, Con) was given leave under the Ten-Minute Rule to bring in a Bill “to introduce compulsory labelling of halal and kosher meat and products containing halal and kosher meat; and for connected purposes”. Despite leave having been given without a division, its chance of becoming law is pretty well zero.

In its explainer on Ten Minute Rule Bills (TMRBs), the Hansard Society comments:

“Realistically, there is rarely time for TMRBs to be considered beyond their introductory stage. Few TRMBs become law, but they are a useful mechanism to enable MPs to generate debate about an issue and to test the opinion of the House on a subject”.

In accordance with standard practice, the Bill was ordered to be read a second time – on Friday 10 July – and to be printed. It should be noted, however, that lots of TMRBs never even get drafted, let alone printed, so don’t bother watching this space – although our Index on Religious slaughter gives an overview of developments and a link to the informative document produced by the House of Commons Library in 2025.

The Met Police and Freemasonry

In R (United Grand Lodge of England & Ors) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2026] EWHC 330, Chamberlain J refused to strike down the new requirement that all Metropolitan police officers and staff who are or who have been members of “an organisation that has confidential membership, hierarchical structures and requires members to support and protect each other” must declare that fact, confidentially, to the local professional standards unit.

“Freedom of belief” rather than of “religion”: but it was subsequently announced that the United Grand Lodge had decided not to appeal. Lewis Graham comments on the decision in the Administrative Court Blog, here: Freemasons in the police force.

Ngole

Our apologies to anyone who was confused by the way our note on the outcome of the EAT appeal in Ngole appeared: so were we. Because of an unexplained WordPress glitch, we had to post it twice. Grrrrrr.

Quick links

• Sylvie Bacquet, Law and Religion Forum: Public Funding and the Autonomy of Faith Schools.
• Mario Ferrante, Law and Religion Forum: Religious Freedom and Equality in Funding Religious Schools.
• Javier Martínez Torrón, Law and Religion Forum: Public and Private Education.

And finally…I

On Tuesday 17 February, the Ancient Briton blog ceased posting, but with its strapline “‘Anonymous’ comments for publication must include a pseudonym”, it was never a primary source of information for us.

And finally…II

Likewise, whilst the Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley blog is not one of our primary sources, as well as being great fun it does generate a number of referrals to the blog, and as a quid pro quo, here’s a recent post – God Loves a tidy Toilet alarm cord. To us, this appears to support the view that “health and safety” issues can be “an objection of last resort”, as we sometimes see in consistory court deliberations and anonymous comments on other blogs…