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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I am making a great effort not to be tempted to defend the Christian Church. I shall speak briefly from the viewpoint of the Methodist Church, which is not a big player in education in this country nationally, although we have a significant number of independent schools, of which I am chair of the board of management, and a growing number of state-maintained schools that are of Methodist foundation, some of them jointly with the Church of England. I have to say that on the whole the Methodist Church believes that Methodist foundation schools are a gift to society and exercise an open-access policy, do not have a quota system of any sort and would resist it strongly. If this amendment were to be passed, it would create grave difficulties for a Methodist foundation school, which would have to start asking about the professed religious allegiance of parents and create a bureaucratic administrative process which would be very difficult. I agree entirely and enthusiastically with the intention behind the amendment, but it just would not work—I cannot see how it would. All of us are familiar with the lengths to which parents will go in order to get their children into the school of their choice, moving house and making all sorts of arrangements. When I was a minister in the circuit, I noted a number of people who suddenly discovered a profound religious faith about six months before the selection process began to take place and lost it like mist in the morning sunshine soon afterwards. Yet many parents see schools of a religious foundation as institutions of excellence with a strong emphasis on justice and discipline in the way they are run. They choose these schools on educational grounds and on many occasions pretend to have a faith in order to get their children into school. If this amendment were passed, it is interesting to speculate whether it would work the other way around. Would faithful people suddenly lose their faith in order to get a place within the 25 per cent allotted to them? I know that the policy in Church of England schools means that parents from other Christian denominations have done rather well. If they can prove that they are members of a church which is in communion with the Church of England through Churches Together in England, they are often successful in gaining a place. Would that be forbidden under this amendment? Would those who are not members of the Church of England be regarded as ““other religious denominations”” along with the other religious faiths? I cannot see how this quota system could be fair and workable in any way at all. However, I would support encouragement given to all our faith schools to have open access and, with their strong foundations in the community, to have something to offer the educational principle—which I entirely and utterly believe to be the case. Strong encouragement should be given to providing wider access for people of all faiths and for those who profess no faith, but for whom the Christian faith is in any case dedicated to encourage in faith; to be a missionary opportunity, if you like. In this Bill and by any other means I would very much like to see faith taken seriously as an offering to society, but certainly not imposed by a quota system.