Schools White Paper

My Lords, we send those good wishes in full measure. I thank the right reverend Prelate for his remarks, with which I agree in their entirety. He is right: we are seeking to achieve schools that are both distinctive and inclusive. The Church of England accepts that as its mission and is playing an important role in many of our most challenging communities in helping to establish schools that have both of those characteristics. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool and I were speaking only this afternoon about the outstanding academy in Liverpool that he has pioneered and indeed is chairing the governors of, serving the Kensington district of Liverpool, which is a highly deprived community. It is a community school that will not give any faith preference for admissions. It is being set up in partnership with the Roman Catholic Church. In that sense it is a path-breaking project. That is exactly the kind of initiative focused on providing excellent education with a strong inclusive ethos in some of our most deprived communities that we wish to see extended more widely and the opportunity of the trust schools that we believe will enable that to take place. We welcome the full engagement of the Church of England and the other faith communities in that process.