Education and Inspections Bill

Before I speak to Amendment No. 146A, I want to comment on the speeches of the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Tonge, and my noble friend Lady Flather, who all spoke eloquently in favour of secularism? That has a long and honourable tradition in the debates on education in our country. But secularism has never become very popular in our country for historic reasons. It required the French Revolution to create anti-clericalism that led to the exclusion of religious education in French schools. When new countries set up their education systems, America also excluded religious education from state schools. But in our country, schools and religion have gone together for centuries. The secondary school I went to, St Paul’s, was founded in the churchyard ofSt Paul’s. In those days—1509—it had a remarkable foundation by Dean Colet, who said that 153 boys should receive free education and they could come from all colours and creeds. That is a remarkable statement for 1509. It is indicated clearly that there has always been an inclusive nature in much of the Christian education in our country. My amendment would say that when groups come together and seek to establish a new faith school, permission will be given only if at least 30 per cent of the children come from other faiths. That is not as it were the ultimate argument that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, is making; it is a different way of approaching the problem. I say that because the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, have to be met. The ethnic communities and the other religions in our country—not only the Muslims but also the Hindus, Sikhs, the Greek Orthodox and the Jews—have always felt that they should have some share, as it were, which my amendment would still provide. My point is that traditionally Anglican schools have not been exclusive for a long time. I went to a state Anglican primary school in Southport. We went to church twice a year. We had a hymn and a prayer at the beginning of the day, but that happened in every school in those days. There was no exclusion: my closest friend was a Jewish boy and I learned about the Jewish faith by going to his home in the evening and finding out how he prepared. We were all in together. I certainly was not told that I was one of the elect and I was going to be saved by going to that school. Very few Catholic schools are now exclusive. Originally they were, but I remember visiting several Catholic schools when I was Secretary of State, which included children from all faiths and no faiths, because frankly they had run out of Roman Catholic pupils. I do not believe that the two Christian faiths in this country are exclusive. They are inclusive. I believe strongly that a separate education is not the ideal way forward for our country at the moment. A separate education based on faith means a separate status and eventually a separate community. It is inevitable. In Northern Ireland, apartheid starts in schools; 90 per cent of children in Northern Ireland still go to separate faith schools and look what has happened there. There is a growing opposition to more exclusive faith schools. Trevor Phillips, who is the most eloquent spokesman for racial and ethnic equality, has come out against them. So has the National Union of Teachers. David Bell, the former chief inspector, writing a year ago, said, "““many young people are being educated in faith-based schools with little appreciation of their wider responsibilities and obligations to British society””." More recently, the director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity has also come out against them. Separate faith schools that are exclusive are bad for both the majority community and for the minority community. They are bad for the minority community because they emphasise the separateness and the separate status that that community has—that is what they are there for. It might be ways of handling themselves; ways of dress; all sorts of things, but they are separate. They are not part of the wider responsibilities that David Bell talked about. I happened to listen to a broadcast on BBC Radio 4 when I was driving up one morning about a fortnight ago, with a young man from Pakistan who was visiting exclusive faith schools—Muslim and Christian—and non-faith schools. This is what he said: "““When I went to school in the 1980 state schools like these didn’t exist. My parents were Pakistani immigrants—education was to be my way out of working in a factory like my dad. They sent me to a mainly white comprehensive where I was one of a handful of Asians. At this point I should be complaining about feeling alienated and excluded but the truth is—that school was the best thing that happened to me. I learned how to socialise and talk to other kids—unlike the Asian boys who went to the all-Asian schools””." That is an eloquent expression of someone from a Pakistani background who experienced growing up in our country. There is no doubt that the schools are highly exclusive. I have managed to get through the internet the admissions policy of some of these schools, although I am waiting for some others. I have only those from Islamic schools. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, and hope he will understand that I have nothing against Islam. As a practising Christian, I have great respect for all other faiths. But the admissions policy is highly selective. Some schools require passport photographs; I do not think that that is done in other state schools. There is one Islamic secondary school that asks: "““Can your child read the Qur’an fluently? … Has your child completed reading the Qur’an? … How much of the Qur’an has your child read? … How many Surahs of the Holy Qur’an has your child memorised?””." I do not know whether the right reverend Prelate could tell us how many Christian schools ask whether their pupils have read the Bible and how many things they remember from it. The answer is none—because there is no exclusive questioning of that sort. Let us be aware of the exclusive nature of the schools that are being established. Another admissions policy that I have found states that the aim of the school is to produce, "““total Muslim personalities through the training of children’s spirits, intellect, feelings and bodily senses””." I have nothing against that, but I believe that that instruction should take place in mosques, synagogues, temples and churches. Until 1997, that was the policy. The Government changed the policy, reversing the policy of all previous Secretaries of State, including myself. On the whole we resisted giving permission to exclusive faith schools. In my time, I had no applications from Christian bodies but I had applications from Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh bodies. I always found good reasons why one could not give permission, and I believed that that was the right policy to follow. The Government changed that policy, which was a grievous and huge mistake, and successive generations in our country will suffer from it. I should like to see the sort of movement that is now happening in Northern Ireland, where there is a movement to have integrated schools. One school that I have come across is the Hazelwood integrated school, which has 40 per cent Roman Catholics, 40 per cent Protestants and 20 per cent others—other faiths and no faiths. That is the sort of mixture that I am trying to achieve in my amendments. Finally, I draw your Lordships’ attention to the comments of a Nobel Prize winner and one of our most distinguished academics, Professor Amartya Sen, who was the master at Trinity and is now a professor at Harvard. He won the Nobel Prize in 1998 for his work on economics of equality, poverty and famine and on social choice theory. He is quite convinced that the policy of separate and exclusive faith schools is wrong. I have read that: "““What grates on Sen is the idea that individuals should be ushered like sheep into pens according to their religious faith, a mode of classification that too often trumps all others and ignores the fact that people are always complex, multi-faceted individuals who choose their identities from a wide range of economic, cultural and ideological alternatives””." He has said that: "““Being defined by one group identity over all others … overlooking whether you’re working class or capitalist, left or right, what your language group is and your literary tastes are, all that interferes with people’s freedom to make their own choices … I think there is a real tyranny there. It doesn’t look like tyranny—it looks like giving freedom and tolerance””—" those are the arguments that are used— "““but it ends up being a denial of individual freedom””." Those comments are very pertinent today. In our society, which is having a great deal of trouble absorbing different groups, although we are making a better fist of it than most other Western countries, to create exclusive faith schools is fundamentally wrong. At a time when the world is faced with two religious wars, it is extraordinary that we are prepared to consider this. So I hope that your Lordships will give some consideration to the amendment that I have tabled. I am not against the sort of faith schools that exist in our country, but any new ones should not be exclusive. They should have children from other faiths as well.