Government rejects cap on religious discrimination at new schools

The National Secular Society has expressed disappointment over the Government's failure to support fairer and more inclusive admissions policies at faith schools.

Yesterday the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill committee voted down an amendment to prevent new state funded faith schools from selecting all pupils based on religion.

The bill will end the presumption that new schools should be 'free school' academies. Free schools with a religious character can select up to 50% of pupils based on religion if they are oversubscribed.

But no longer requiring new schools to be free schools would make it easier for voluntary aided (VA) faith schools to open. Unlike free schools, VA schools can select 100% of pupils based on religion when oversubscribed.

The amendment, tabled by Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilson, would extend the 50% cap on faith based admission at free schools to all other schools, including VA faith schools.

But the committee voted 12-3 against the amendment, following opposition from Shadow Secretary of State for Education and practising Catholic Damian Hinds. While he was Education Secretary under the previous government, Hinds attempted to abolish the existing 50% cap on admissions at religious free schools.

The Department for Education recently admitted it is "highly unlikely" the need for places would be met by schools that operate a 100% faith based admissions arrangement.

The NSS, which urged the committee to back Wilson's amendment during the committee's call for evidence, said the rejection of the amendment is "deeply disappointing" and will put local authorities under "tremendous pressure" from religious groups to open fully selective schools.

Fully selective admissions "only exacerbate inequalities in the school system"

During the debate on the bill, Wilson said the "main driver" behind her amendment was "social cohesion and ethnic diversity". She said non-Christian religious groups seek to set up schools "in certain areas of the country where, without the cap in place, they would not get much racial diversity", which is "worrying for community cohesion".

Expressing that she has "strong personal faith", Wilson said she sends her children to a Church of England school, "mainly because it is in front of my house, so they can leave the house 30 seconds before the gate shuts". However, she feels "uncomfortable with its level of faith selection" at that school. She said it is "important that state-funded schools be for the whole community and be open to everyone".

Fellow Lib Dem MP Ian Sollom said his party tabled the amendment because the bill's provision to end the free school presumption created a "potential loophole" on religious selection. He said this "error" was "made inadvertently during drafting", and the amendment would "bring all new schools into line with the current established principles of faith-based selection".

The amendment was also backed by Labour MP Lizzi Collinge, who said 100% faith selective admissions "only exacerbate inequalities in the school system".

Collinge highlighted evidence that faith schools are more socially selective, create barriers for looked-after and previously looked-after children, and admit fewer pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, as well as fostering religious and ethnic segregation.

She pointed out that faith schools which operate a "scoring" system for religious attendance and volunteering disadvantage poorer families. She said church attendance is higher among wealthier people, because this activity is "less easy to take part in for those who work shifts or weekends and those who do not have the cultural or social capital to enter confidently a situation that is new or perhaps culturally alien".

Hinds said the tendency for faith schools to "slightly outperform the average" creates the idea that there is "some unfairness in the intake of children the schools accept".

Collinge responded: "It is not a belief that the profile of faith schools is different from other schools: it is true.

"If we look at the rates of free school meals and the wealth profile of parents and compare them with peers—if we compare apples with apples—the data shows that".

Hinds said he could counter Collinge with "other statistics", but he was unable to provide these during the debate.

Prior to the vote, schools minister Catherine McKinnell highlighted that the Department for Education "does not collect data about the admission policies of schools with a religious character and we do not have any data on the proportion of children admitted to a school on the basis of faith or how many are able to access a preferred place on the basis of their faith".

She said this means "there is no data to support capping faith admissions on the ground that they are restricting children and parents from accessing the school of their choice".

But the NSS has criticised this lack of transparency on faith based admissions, and suggested the DfE may be trying to "spare the blushes of faith school groups who know discriminatory admissions are unpopular and morally bankrupt".

NSS: Bill now threatens to drive communities apart

NSS head of campaigns Megan Manson said: "It is deeply disappointing that the Government has failed to fix a loophole in this bill which will pave the way for a new wave of fully selective faith schools.

"As a result, local authorities will be under tremendous pressure to open schools which meet the demands of religious institutions, rather than the real needs of local communities.

"As our communities grow evermore diverse, we desperately need schools which bring children from different religious, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds together. But this bill now threatens to drive them further apart."