Church leaders raise concern over counter-terror laws, The Times reports

The Sunday Times has reported that Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has raised concerns over aspects of the government’s counter-terror law, arguing they could unfairly affect Sunday schools.

It was reported that the Archbishop had met with senior ministers to argue against draft measures in the new counter-extremism bill which involved testing ‘fundamental British values’. The new measures will require out-of-school groups teaching under-19s for more than six hours per week to register with a local council.

The government has since decided to discard the provision requiring such groups to register, although Ofsted will still be allowed to investigate schools if there is reasonable cause.

The news comes after a number of religious organisations have expressed concern regarding the forthcoming counter-terrorism bill.

A spokesman for the Church of England said: "Representatives of the Church of England have taken part in consultations with the government over the proposals to regulate out-of-school settings. We await the outcome of those consultation in due course."

Karen Bradley, the minister in charge of the bill, said: “We don’t want to impinge on religious freedoms. If this was easy then government would have done it years ago.”