The requirement for secular state schools to hold Christian assemblies is under challenge in the House of Lords.

Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Burt has tabled a bill — now in committee stage — to end compulsory daily acts of worship, the majority of which must be broadly Christian in character.

The UK was “the only sovereign state in the world to impose Christian worship as standard”, she told a recent debate in the Lords.

Parents have the right to withdraw their children but Baroness Burt proposes to remove it and instead hold inclusive assemblies that encourage children to “reflect on our world, the moral choices that we face, our responsibilities to each other and to the planet”.

The bill would not apply to faith schools.

The former Bishop of Oxford, Lord Harries, supported the move, arguing that “the obligation to have compulsory worship in schools on a daily basis is either widely ignored or so widely interpreted that it is, in fact, evacuated of all significant religious content”.

Support also came from Liberal Democrat Baroness Hamwee, who recalled being asked at school to lead alternative assemblies for her fellow Jewish pupils.

“I was singularly ill-equipped for it and had no support,” she said. “It did not do me any harm but I do not think it was very helpful to those who attended. I have no doubt that the school thought that this was very advanced. I hated it and resented it.”