---

Education and Inspections Bill

moved Amendment No. 12: After Clause 45, insert the following new clause- ““ADMISSION ARRANGEMENTS FOR ADDITIONAL SCHOOLS WITH RELIGIOUS CHARACTER After section 90 of SSFA 1998 insert- ““90A ADMISSION ARRANGEMENTS FOR ADDITIONAL SCHOOLS WITH RELIGIOUS CHARACTER (1) This section applies where an additional foundation or voluntary school with a religious character is to be established. (2) The local education authority for the area in which the school is to be established may, if they so desire, specify that up to 25 per cent of places at the school shall be allocated to pupils who do not follow the religion or religious denomination of the school. (3) Where the local education authority specify a number of places under subsection (2), the admission authority for the school must make admission arrangements accordingly. (4) Where the local education authority decide not to specify a number of places under subsection (2), the consent of the Secretary of State for that decision is required if subsection (5) applies. (5) This subsection applies if it appears to the Secretary of State that there would be significant opposition from residents of the area of the local education authority to the additional school only admitting pupils who follow the religion or religious denomination of the school. (6) For the purposes of this section, a school is ““additional”” if it does not replace a school which has been or is to be discontinued. (7) References in this section to a school with a religious character shall be construed in accordance with section 69(3).”””” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 12—at last. For those of us interested in education it has been a long day’s journey into night. This amendment differs from the amendment tabled last week by myself, the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, and the noble Lords, Lord Skidelsky and Lord Taverne, which your Lordships will recall was much more prescriptive. It gave the Secretary of State the power to insist on a25 per cent quota. This amendment does not do that. Perhaps I may draw the House’s attention particularly to subsection (2), which states that when a new school is set up: "““The local education authority for the area in which the school is to be established may, if they so desire, specify that up to””—" not necessarily the full amount— "““25 per cent of places at the school shall be allocated to pupils who do not follow the religion or religious denomination of the school””." That is the nub of the amendment. It goes on to state that where the local authority does not specify a certain percentage because it is prepared to grant a totally exclusive faith school, the Secretary of State can call that in if there is significant opposition from residents. That is the amendment we are about to discuss. I had better turn off my mobile phone—though you never know, it may be God. I apologise to noble Lords for that little intermission. The point I want to make is that the amendment we have tabled today was the Government’s policy just a week ago. It was the policy enunciated at the Dispatch Box by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, on17 October when he said that, on the undertaking that I withdraw my amendment, the Government intended to, "““bring forward an amendment on Third Reading along the following lines. We do not believe it right for there to be a mandatory national 25 per cent requirement…However, we wish to give local authorities, in their role as guardians of community cohesion””—" that is where the term came from in these debates, and it is absolutely right— "““a power to require that new faith schools have admissions policies which include the offer of at least 25 per cent of places on the basis of local preference, not faith preference alone””." That was the policy that the Government intended to follow. The Minister also said: "““We also wish to confer a reserve power on the Secretary of State—a power, not a duty—to act in this matter where a local authority’s decisions give rise to a sufficient body of local objections””.—[Official Report, 17/10/06; col. 738.]" The Minister has already said in reply to an earlier amendment that that was conditional upon his securing a degree of consensus. He said that he was very sorry but that he could not secure a degree of consensus. I will come back to that later, if I may. So, what I have tabled is in effect what the Government’s policy was seven days ago. Indeed, so enthusiastic was the Secretary of State for this policy that he actually leaked no less than a Cabinet document to the Sunday Times of the day before last Monday revealing that this was the Government’s policy. He made a speech on that Monday saying that faith schools must cross ethnic and faith barriers. As late as Wednesday of last week, one of my friends went to see him and he confirmed that on the following day the Government would table those two amendments. However, on Thursday night everything changed. Unfortunately, I was on the way to Oxford in a coach and it was very difficult to find out what was happening. But the Government completely changed tack. They abandoned their principle and their policy. One might ask why there was such a huge U-turn, because it was certainly the fastest U-turn in political history. I think Churchill said that the best diet in the world is your own words. But when Churchill said that, he thought that there would be a decent interval between the utterance and digestion. In this case there was not; it was a mere matter of seven days. The reason why the policy was withdrawn is very clear. There was a very effective Catholic campaign—brilliantly effective—headed by the Archbishop of Birmingham, who wrote an article in the Daily Telegraph saying that this was the thin end of the wedge—those were his very words. Of course, it was not the thin end of the wedge, because the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who is gifted in these matters, said very clearly that, "““there is no question of requiring this admission arrangement in respect of existing faith schools where it does not already apply””.—[Official Report, 17/10/06; col. 739.]" The Government made very clear when they said they were going to table these amendments that in no way were they to apply to existing faith schools. But the view of the Catholic Church, led by the Archbishop of Birmingham—of whom I am an admirer, because he has managed to secure a complete surrender by the Government without conceding an inch—is exactly the same as it was seven days ago. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, is nodding. I hope that the Minister has noted that the noble Lord nodded when I said that. He is the closest that we get in this House to a Catholic authority. The Archbishop of Birmingham, in an interview last Friday, said, ““If we are going to have any new Catholic schools—though we have no such proposals because we cannot afford any new schools at the moment—but if we have any new Catholic schools, we will determine what the demand is locally for such schools””. If they decide that there are 200 pupils in Bury St Edmunds who want to have Catholic schools, they will then put forward a proposal for a Catholic school for 200 pupils in Bury St Edmunds. Then he said, ““When we fill that lot, if there is any spare, we will add a few more””—that is their present policy. So I think that the Archbishop of Birmingham—and I hope that the noble Lord will take this back to him—is a brilliant negotiator. He has got the Government to surrender without yielding an inch. I think that the Government ought to use him in Iraq. I think that he would do a marvellous job there. Congratulations to him.