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Education and Inspections Bill

I shall deal with some of the questions that were raised before turning to the wider issues—how community cohesion will work and how the 25 per cent. will work. I will take a few moments, in the hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) will return to the Chamber, as he asked me some important questions. On the admissions code, I can tell the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) that we plan to make it clear that the arrangements for introducing not of that faith into faith schools will be voluntary. If we did so by regulation, that could end up being compulsory. On the question whether we are making any changes to the code that will affect existing schools, the answer is no. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) asked an important question about co-operation with children’s services. It will be down to the governing body to decide how it promotes well-being, but in doing so it must have regard to the local children and young people’s plan provided for in the Bill. The plan will cover the need to work with the full range of children’s services. On the other important point that the hon. Lady raised, Ofsted will look at schools’ collaboration with other schools and partners. That is included in their self-evaluation framework, which is why the endorsement of Christine Gilbert, the new inspector of schools, was so important. Her letter in reply to my noble Friend Lord Adonis made it clear that Ofsted welcomes the proposal and can make it work. I shall spend a little time on the two main aspects. I accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) that the propositions emerged in the other place. That was one of the problems with the 25 per cent. quota—for want of a better term. It made us realise the need for proper consultation. When we sat down with the faith groups and started to talk the issue through, we found, first, that it was unwise to proceed with that as a compulsory measure, and secondly, that there was a consensus on a number of matters. I can reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North that that is not the end of the discussions with the faith groups. We started a valuable discussion, which we have agreed to continue. Let me set out who was represented in those discussions. We had, among others, the director of education of the Church of England Board of Education, the director of the Network of Sikh Organisations, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, two representatives of the Association of Muslim Schools, and the director of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, all sitting around a table having a conversation about how we improve community cohesion.