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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate says 25 per cent but Hansard will reveal that he said ““20 per cent”” in his speech. Any advance on that would be very welcome. That 25 per cent is a very wise and sensible move. I went to a Church of England primary school, Holy Trinity in Southport, during the war. It was totally inclusive. My closest friend was a Jewish boy. I learnt about the Jewish faith by going to his home on Fridays. It was my brand of Anglicanism, not too proselytising and not too fervent. We went to church twice a year and we started every day with a hymn and a prayer, but I think that most schools did in those days. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth said, that reflects the practice of the Church of England today. He then hesitated—I understand why—before saying, ““We are following the right path, but I do not to want to force any of the other religions in our country to follow my path””. That reminded me of the description of Mr Pecksniff in Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens, when Dickens said that he was like a signpost: always pointing the way but never going. That is not entirely fair, because the Church of England is going, but although the road is so great and wonderful, it is not going to twist the arms of other religions to go down it with it. I understand its view. My amendment would mean that we would follow the Church of England’s example and apply it to other schools. I think that it is worth reminding the House of the argument for inclusion. It is wrong to divide children by religion at the ages of five and 11. Where that has happened in societies such as Northern Ireland, that crop has produced a savage harvest. The comparison with Northern Ireland is fair. There is great intransigence, but there is now hope in that country because community schools are being established in which there are 40 per cent Catholics, 40 per cent Protestants and 20 per cent others. I have talked to the prime mover of that in Northern Ireland and it is a very inspiring move indeed. The second reason why inclusion is so good was expressed very clearly by Rabbi Romain, the rabbi of the synagogue in Maidenhead, when he said: "““I want my children to sit next to a Sikh in class, play football in the break with a Methodist, to do homework with a Hindu, and walk to the bus stop with a Muslim before returning to their Jewish home ... Leaders of all faiths should put aside religious self-interest and make national cohesion a higher priority””." Of course, he is not alone in that. The NUT strongly supports inclusion. So does Trevor Phillips, the head of the Commission for Racial Equality. David Bell, a former Chief Inspector of Schools, reported only two years ago that, "““many young people are being educated in faith-based schools, with little appreciation of their wider responsibilities and obligations to British society””." Then there is Amartya Sen, who was the master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and who won the Nobel prize for his distinguished writing on identity and violence. He has made the point again and again that you should not characterise people by one thing—Christian, Hindu or Muslim—or by their race or nationality. To put people in pens like that is a denial of human character, for the simple reason that each one of us is subject to a variety of influences of all sorts that affect our development. He thinks that that is very damaging. He said: "““Being defined by one group identity over all others, overlooking whether you’re working class or capitalist, left or right, what your language group is and your literary tastes are, all that interferes with people's freedom to make their own choices … I think there is a real tyranny there. It doesn’t look like tyranny - it looks like giving freedom and tolerance - but it ends up being a denial of individual freedom””." I strongly support his words. The last person whom I pray in evidence for inclusion is Mr Cantle of the Cantle report. Your Lordships will remember the race riots in Bradford, Oldham and Burnley and the Cantle report spoke in rather chilling terms of ““parallel and polarised lives””. He said: "““Self-segregation is an unacceptable basis for a harmonious community””." He recommended that in all schools 25 per cent—one quarter—of places should be available to other faiths. I point out that my amendment relates only to new schools. It is too ambitious to try to move legislation to change what is in fact the educational settlement of our country. I hope that many existing faith schools will follow the example of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth, but the amendment specifically relates to new faith schools. There is a problem and we should not add to it. In parenthesis, the department should know much more about the existing faith schools that have been created. I have taken an interest in this, but although you can get a lot of information from the department's website about selection criteria, the department does not seem to know much about the schools. One new Muslim school told me that it had to send in photographs of its children—which is, of course, illegal. The department should watch that much more carefully, not just in the case of Muslim schools but of all schools. It was a BBC programme that revealed that the curriculum in some faith schools was being very marginally followed. In one of them, European history was not being taught at all. I turn to two groups who are very concerned about the amendment. First, there are the Roman Catholics. The first point to recognise is that many Roman Catholic schools today are inclusive. In secondary schools, 20 per cent of pupils come from other faiths. The Catholic Church does not look on that as a disadvantage or a curse but an opportunity to try to persuade those children to take a greater interest in religion. I think that the proportion in primary schools is about 17 per cent. Secondly, the amendment affects only new schools. I do not believe that there are any proposals to start any new Catholic secondary schools. Since 1997, there have been only two new Catholic faith schools—two primary schools, one in Milton Keynes and one in Cornwall—so the Catholic Church has not made a great advance in establishing new schools. I also point out the encouraging change of attitude that, for example, allows one of the new faith academies in Liverpool to be both Catholic and Anglican. That is very welcome. Perhaps I can say something about the Muslims. I have a high regard for Islam; I have read parts of the Koran. To describe the Islamic faith as purely concerned with violence is a total and ridiculous parody. All religions are capable of being distorted by their extremists. There have been six exclusive Muslim schools since the Government introduced the provision and they all have the purpose of creating total Muslim personalities through the training of children's spirits, intelligence, feelings and bodily senses. I have no particular quarrel with that, but that should be done in the mosque. If that is the object of Christian, Hindu, Sikh or Jewish schools, it should be done in the synagogue, the church or the temple. I should have thought that one purpose of the British education system is to try to create a British personality. The argument that is put, which I can quite understand, is that there are about 120 private Muslim schools, many of which provide pretty deplorable education and would certainly benefit from state funding. I see that the former Secretary of State for Education is nodding. I am sure that that is right. But if there is a request for public funding, it is entirely appropriate that the state should determine some standards and conditions to be met. I say to the leaders of the Muslim community who have influence in our society—