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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I am particularly interested in the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, because, to the extent that I understood him, if he is correct in his interpretation of the Human Rights Act, all new faith schools will be illegal and, indeed, there will be considerable doubt about existing faith schools. Whether or not that is good news or stands up legally, I do not know, but it certainly adds a whole new light to the issue. The Minister said that he will look at the situation. I would very much like him to let us know what the position is. It is a fundamental change much more radical than anything I am suggesting. There have been two threads of comment, hostility or opposition to what I have said. First, it was said that this is unworkable; that quotas will not work. I am not a quota man. I always think Liberal education policy is something of an enigma enveloped in a fog, but the noble Baroness who speaks for the Liberal Democrats said that it is unworkable. She should come with me to Northern Ireland in a fortnight’s time; I am going with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs.We are going to see 53 schools that work on a quota—40 per cent Catholic, 40 per cent Protestant and 20 per cent other. How do you think Northern Ireland has managed to get it right? Northern Ireland gets so much wrong, but how do you think it managed to get that right when it is unworkable. Of course it is workable if there is a will to make it work. I know the system that I am proposing is not perfect. I enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brennan. I looked upon him as an ally. On Friday morning of last week, after the Government withdrew their amendments, I had to draw up these amendments but I did not have his advice. I wish I had because I would have made them better and workable. The Government have that opportunity and have perfect amendments drafted by the Bill team. I spoke to the Bill team but, unfortunately, it did not send the amendments to me. I would have tabled those if it had. I am quite sure that if I had tabled those amendments, all the problems that the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, mentioned would have been resolved. It is not a question of wording but a question of intent. Does the noble Lord want to see integrated education in our country or not? The noble Lord did not express his views on that so I do not know what they are, but I want to see integrated education in our country. The second point was that the previous amendment does all the work. We debated it earlier and I supported it, but it is carrying too large a weight. You cannot expect the inspectors in our schools to by themselves create community cohesion: it is asking too much of them. The Government have got to do something. I think that the voluntary undertakings they have got will not really work. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, a very old friend, who is not going to support me tonight. But he is not going to vote with the Government—we ex-Home Secretaries must stick together. But if either of us held that post today, there would be thudding on our desk every week reports about a lack of social cohesion in our inner cities. The reports would say all the time that you must not allow societies to develop that are parallel and separate. That is what distinctive faith schools will do; it is an inevitable result. All the advice goes that way from the Cantle report in 2001. I think it is very disappointing that only one Member from an Asian community has spoken in the debate today. I have been told by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, that we must not push Muslims into the corner. But there are Muslim Members of this House and this is a debate about the Muslim faith in our country today. If they want to share their views and communicate, they have some responsibility to try to do so. We cannot debate this matter by ourselves. Finally, I say to the right reverend Prelates—the bishops of my dear old Anglican Church—that when I was Education Secretary and I had to deal with the bishops of the Church of England and the bishops of the Church of Rome, I discovered why bishops move diagonally. I am quite sure that if these amendments had been tabled by the Government as they intended to do a week ago—beautifully drafted by the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, and perfect in their execution but saying exactly what my amendments do—those on the Bishops’ Bench would be voting for them.