Lord Sacks is to go head to head with one of Britain's most outspoken atheist thinkers at a BBC festival on Wednesday.

The Chief Rabbi will discuss questions of science and religion with Richard Dawkins, the philosopher and vice president of the British Humanist Association, whose books include The God Delusion and The Selfish Gene. A programme featuring a meeting between the two will also be shown on the BBC on Wednesday night, to mark Rosh Hashanah.

The two have previously debated each other in a public forum, on a Radio Four programme nearly a year ago.

The debate, which is part of the BBC-hosted Re:Think Festival in Salford, is likely to see the Chief Rabbi dispute the atheist view that science and religion cannot coexist.

Lord Sacks told the BBC: "What is needed, now more than ever, is a conversation between the forces of science and those of religion.

"There can, and must, be a great partnership between science and religion."