Christianity should be scaled down in public life and especially in education, a report has argued. The report, by the Commission on Religion and Belief in Public Life, was issued on Monday, and called for the next coronation to have a multi-religious nature and for non-Christian representatives to sit in the House of Lords. The report, called Living with Difference, was the work of a two-year-long commission, chaired by crossbench peer and former judge Baroness Butler-Sloss and put together by 20 “leading religious and academic thinkers”. The report argued that Britain had changed hugely in recent decades and that half of the population identified as non-religious. Among its conclusions were that schools should hold an “inclusive ‘time for reflection’” rather than a Christian assembly, and that non-Anglican religious groups should be represented in the Lords. Baroness Butler-Sloss said the recommendations amounted to a “new settlement for religion and belief in Britain” and were aimed at providing a role in society for all citizens, “regardless of their beliefs or absence of them”. The report suggested that the Government should repeal the requirement for schools to hold acts of collective worship or religious observance, and instead hold “inclusive assemblies and times for reflection that draw upon a range of sources”. A spokesman for the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales said: “Seeing faith as a problem that needs to be contained and managed is a mistake, failing to acknowledge the central role of religion in the integral human development of each person and the contribution religions make to society as a whole (eg in education, healthcare and care of the vulnerable).”