---

Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I guess that none of us is going to be persuaded very much by what has been said, so I, too, have an incentive to be brief. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, that I was invited by the Church of England to chair a review of the future of church schools, which caused me to go out and about in the land. One of the schools I went into was in Bradford, where it appeared to me that95 per cent of pupils were Muslim. That did not suggest to me that they were coming to be indoctrinated. I turned to the Bishop of London on one occasion and raised this question with him because I was aware that Muslim children often went to church schools. He said, ““I asked the same question to a leader of the Muslim community, and he said, ‘We look at it like this: there are those who believe in God and those who don’t. You do, and we feel more comfortable in a school where there is this belief than we would otherwise’””. That does not suggest indoctrination. If I remember correctly—and my memory is fallible—in the report of the committee which I chaired, we made it explicit that the business was not to convert but to offer young people the experience of what it is to learn and play within the framework of a community that had values and certain beliefs. Some things about the amendment surprise me. I found no difficulty with Proposed Section 4 because parents already have that right. They can withdraw from religious assemblies, but very few do, which suggests that they are not perturbed by them. Proposed Section 2(1) refers to furthering a pupil’s, "““spiritual, moral, social and cultural education””." That seems to deny schools that are not voluntary aided the choice of making it an act of worship. Subsection (5) of proposed Section 3 makes it explicit that voluntary-aided schools may do so; the implication is that others cannot. I wonder where that leaves voluntary-controlled faith schools, of which there are very many. I was surprised that proposed Section 3(8) said that a voluntary-aided school may, on special occasions, use a church in which to worship. Why only on special occasions? There are schools which have a church on site; perhaps the church is the only place with a room big enough to accommodate everyone. I must not go on about the detail. I just wanted to put differently the main point made by my noble friend Lord Alton. In the faith schools of which I have some knowledge, the business is not to seize minds, it is to open minds.