Education and Inspections Bill

I support the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Flather, in tabling this amendment. I hope that I understand some of the Government’s reasons for wanting more faith schools. Certainly there is an issue concerning money. If a group is prepared to put up some money for the establishment of a school, that could be very welcome, although I would rather that the taxpayer paid that money because I believe that education is the most important service that any state can provide for its people. However, I can understand the reasoning. I can also understand that because Anglican and Catholic schools exist, we must be fair to other faiths. I was born and bred an Anglican and I believe that we should all recognise the tremendous contribution that the Christian faith has made to education in this country. I suspect that there were times in this country when education would have died out altogether but for the churches that kept it alive. I hope that people will always recognise that. To be fair to the people of this country, we should surely ask the Government not to extend the privilege of faith schools to all other faiths in our communities, but to say, ““Without abolishing our existing faith schools, how can we make them cater for the needs of the entire community?””. I suspect that someone in the debate today will say, ““Many of them already do””; and that is quite true. There are many Anglican and Catholic schools that cater for all religions in their communities. That is a very good thing, and I have no criticism of it. However, to use their existence as an argument for extending other faith schools is very dangerous. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, argued very eloquently that faith schools have a better ethos or achieve better results than non-faith schools. I would contest that view, because the people who send their children to faith schools are often selective and much more supportive parents than parents in non-faith schools may be. The Government are giving us reasons for allowing other faith groups to fund schools, to make capital available to have other faith schools in this country, but surely the Government must feel a little afraid that in future generations, if not in this one, it will lead to a division of communities, as we have seen in Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland the flames were fanned by the existence of different faith schools. Surely, the Government must see that. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what he proposes to do, if other faith schools are set up in this country, to ensure that our communities are not divided. For example, will he ensure that children of all faiths attend Muslim schools? Are we going to insist that there should be a mix of children in all our schools, or are we truly going to have the children in our communities, sometimes from the age of five, divided in Muslim, Catholic, Anglican, Hindu and Jewish schools? It is a recipe for disaster. We must understand that. In conclusion, I would like the Minister seriously to address this question: what will the benefits be and how will the Government ensure that our communities are not divided further by the existence of more faith schools?