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Education and Inspections Bill

No, my Lords, I will not. It is perfectly reasonable for a school to believe that pastoral duties should be conducted by a member of a particular faith, but under the law at the moment it can impose that requirement only if the member of staff is a qualified teacher and not support staff. That is ridiculous inflexibility because it does not restrict the right of faith schools to discriminate; it simply says that they can discriminate only in favour of teachers. The amendments would enable voluntary-aided schools to take advantage of the wider workforce reforms that enable support staff to play a bigger role, and to apply the same test to them. But the crucial point is that schools must do so only where they believe there is a genuine occupational requirement.