Clause 44 - Admission forums
Education Bill
10:15 am
Mr Phil Willis (Harrogate and Knaresborough, Liberal Democrat)
I have enormous respect for the hon. Gentleman, and I regard him as a friend in this House, but I have not disregarded that. I visit Bradford often, and I also visited Oldham and the hon. Gentleman's constituency recently. I accept that elements of those communities have made demands. It would be absolutely wrong to say that the massed ranks of the Muslim community want their children educated in Muslim schools. When I visited Dixons city technology college in Bradford, it was interesting to meet Muslim, Sikh and Hindu youngsters who declared that they and their parents wanted good schools. They were happier to work with their white counterparts in Bradford, rather than being in ethnic ghetto schools, which was the exact phrase one of them used. The evidence is, and the Minister knows it full well, that fewer than one in 10 people regularly go to church or are a member of a single faith group. The national demand that the Prime Minister—