KCC Prayer Row: Reform Councillors Defy Legal Warning

No pothole has ever been filled by filming councillors saying the Lord’s Prayer. No care package has ever been arranged by singing the national anthem into a webcast.

There is no pothole in Kent that can be repaired by filming a councillor saying the Lord’s Prayer.

No elderly resident will get the care package they need because someone sings “God Save the King” into a council webcast. No SEND backlog will shrink because patriotism has been given a camera angle. No short-staffed care home will be rescued by County Hall turning itself into a badly lawyered chapel with flags.

But this, astonishingly, is where Kent County Council spent its time.

At the Selection and Member Services Committee on 7 May 2026, councillors considered a report by Monitoring Officer Petra Der Man (pictured) called “Constitution: Update Options”. It warned that KCC’s power to amend its Constitution “is not unlimited”, and that proposals exposing the council to “significant legal risk” cannot be treated as legitimate constitutional options. The relevant section covered the Lord’s Prayer, the national anthem, face coverings, flags, the Monarch’s portrait and press seating.

The report did not ban prayer. It said the law allows councils to include “prayers or other religious observance”, but does not require them to do so. “So, it is a legal choice.” The problem was not prayer. The problem was making prayer part of a filmed public ritual where who joins in, who stays silent and who leaves the room may reveal private belief or non-belief.

Der Man’s written advice said some members or officers may “choose or prefer not to participate nor have their beliefs displayed publicly”. Religious and philosophical beliefs, it said, are “special category data” and need “heightened protection”. If KCC wanted the Lord’s Prayer, it could happen “off” camera or in a separate room, with webcasting safeguards so “no particular Members nor officers can ever be identified during prayers”.

Der Man repeated the point in the meeting. The Lord’s Prayer proposal was “lawful” but “discretionary”, she said. If it happened, “there needs to be safeguards”. Then came the sentence Reform councillors should have written down: “it will be off camera and will need to be off camera.”

Cllr Richard Palmer had other ideas. He referred to the “Biddeford case”, Eric Pickles and the later Act of Parliament, and said “we are a Christian nation”. He then proposed that the prayer “should be live broadcast on the webcast” as part of the formal council process. “If something is unlawful,” he said, “I’d like to know the law that says it’s unlawful.”

Der Man answered him. The issue, she said, was “freedom of expression” and “GDPR”, because “there is a right to privacy of people’s religious beliefs”. Der Man told members broadcasting the prayer would be “unlawful”, and that the amendment would still go to full council after the committee voted it through.

The exchange then became ridiculous. Der Man said participation or non-participation could be interpreted by others, and “that is something that cannot be permitted”. “Off camera is the way forward to make this lawful,” she said. Palmer replied that, until a legal authority was produced, “it’s just an opinion”, adding: “my opinion is it’s quite lawful to hold it on webcast.”

Then came the serious warning. Der Man said she would “have to consider section five reports” because, in her view, holding prayers on camera would be unlawful. A section 5 report is the Monitoring Officer’s statutory red card: a formal warning where a council proposal, decision or omission is, or may be, unlawful or amount to maladministration. In plain English, it is the legal smoke alarm going off.

Cllr Antony Hook said he was “really astonished”. KCC had a “highly competent” Monitoring Officer, “a qualified lawyer of many years experience in local government”, giving “a definitive professional opinion which this council should follow”. He added that he did not know “how many days in law school” sat behind the contrary view. That was the chamber’s polite version of: stop pretending a hunch is a legal argument.

The anthem proposal sat in the same legal swamp. Der Man’s report said similar risks applied because views on the monarchy and singing the anthem may be “legitimately/lawfully held”. There was “no justification”, it said, for putting members, officers or the public in a position where they were compelled to reveal differing personal opinions. If the anthem happened, it should happen after the meeting, off camera, with time for those who did not wish to participate to leave.

Cllr Hood put it plainly: “We’re talking about full council. I’m not talking about last night at the Proms.” Cllr Kennedy pointed out that the committee had already voted to reduce scrutiny time, only to make space for “prayers and jingoistic national anthem singing”. He called it a distraction from “adult social care”, “social services, education, and all the other items”.

Cllr Prater got to the heart of it: “Loyalty to this country does not involve singing a song.” People in Kent, he said, “do not start their working day with a prayer and end it with a national anthem”; they “get on with their business”. Quite. Residents might reasonably expect councillors to do the same.

Nor does the “Christian nation” line carry the weight Palmer seemed to place on it. Kent’s 2021 Census figures show 48.5% of residents identified as Christian and 40.9% said they had no religion. ONS is clear that census religion data measures affiliation — the religion someone connects or identifies with — “rather than their beliefs or active religious practice”. A census answer is not church attendance, and it is certainly not consent to be filmed in a public loyalty test.

This is not about banning prayer. It is not about banning the national anthem. It is about a council being told, in writing and in public, that its preferred performance risked unlawfulness — and then choosing the camera anyway.

Kent needs roads repaired, care delivered, children supported, budgets understood and legal advice respected. Reform’s County Hall delivered a legal mess with a very bad soundtrack. When councillors pick a fight with the law, they shouldn’t be surprised when the law wins.

The Shepway Vox Team

Discernibly Different Dissent