Clause 40
Education and Inspections Bill
8:00 pm
Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)
I must admit I am very hurt that the Minister has not seen fit to accept any of my amendments so far. Despite all the plaudits that I have given her, and the advances that I have made to her through my speeches, they have been all cruelly rejected. However, there comes a moment when one gets angry, and I am a bit angry about this aspect of the Bill. It first motivated me to take an interest in the legislation, and I put my concerns directly to the Prime Minister, face to face, in the Liaison Committee.
The reason why I feel angry is no secret. I am interested in faith education—specifically Catholic education, but Anglican education, too—particularly in London, where such schools are oversubscribed. It is no secret that the Prime Minister sent his sons to the London Oratory school, which has always interviewed pupils. I have sent a son there and another of my sons is going there next year. Some people think that Conservative MPs have a go at the Prime Minister over the London Oratory only because they are trying to make a political point. I feel strongly about the school not because I want to make such a point but because it provides a superb ethos, and that is precious.
Presumably, the Prime Minister had to be interviewed to get his children into the school. Having enjoyed the education that it gives, it is wrong that he should now put his name to a Bill that will ban that and other faith schools from interviewing. I feel strongly about the issue and I freely admit that I speak from personal experience. I cannot believe that the Prime Minister or the Minister in their heart of hearts really want this unnecessary clause.
My hon. Friends support the Bill. Some parts of it are really worth while and will provide a small impetus towards getting more choice and diversity. All that is fair enough. However, why does there have to be this mean-minded little clause to ban interviews, just to appease the Bill’s critics? As my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton has said many times, the Bill was going to get an enormous majority in any event, so the clause was quite unnecessary.
Perhaps I will be told, “Edward, don’t worry about the banning of interviews; only a few schools interview now.” But why on earth do we have to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut? Given that only a few of the 3,500 schools interview, do we need the clause? I do not think so. Relatively few schools interview, but I am aware only of faith schools that do so.
Incidentally, the Bill makes it clear that interviews can be held to ascertain a propensity for boarding. I would have thought that a state boarding school, or a state school that takes some boarders, could use that as a device not only to ascertain the aptitude of children in respect of boarding, but—horror of horrors—in a hidden way to select parents who are middle-class or support the ethos of the school. Apparently, interviewing is allowed for some things, but a faith school cannot interview to preserve its ethos.
I have a lot of time for the Chairman of the Education and Skills Committee, the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), and he feels strongly about this issue. He is very knowledgeable and perfectly entitled to his point of view, but I understand that he, along with many others in this House and many in the educational world, is strongly opposed to faith schools. I happen to think that those people are wrong.
There is a bit of a hidden agenda. I do not think that many such people are really opposed to existing faith schools—the very small number of Jewish schools or the long-established Anglican or Roman Catholic schools. Some people who oppose faith schools are opposed really to Muslim schools, not because of nasty, racist views or views against Muslims or any other such thing, but because they are worried that such schools will create a ghetto mentality. They are particularly worried about single-sex Muslim schools, which provide different education for girls and for boys.
We live in a very politically correct society, and although nobody dares admit it, I think that many people opposed to faith schools have that hidden agenda. Others oppose such schools because they believe that they cherry-pick and use the interviews, which are supposed to assess Anglicanism or Catholicity, as a hidden means of selecting middle-class pupils.
I can speak only from personal experience of a Catholic primary school, a Catholic comprehensive school and an Anglican school—Lady Margaret school in London, to which I tried and failed to send a daughter and which also interviewed at that stage. When I went to those schools to be interviewed with my children, it was clear that the questions asked were a genuine attempt to test the commitment, particularly of the child, to the Catholic or Anglican faith. It will be said by the opponents of such interviews that when the headmaster or the deputy head asks a 10-year-old child what he or she understands about Easter, it will be easy—it will happen in a trice—to work out the social background of the child and so on. The opponents of interviews say that they are hidden a means of selecting middle-class parents.
I do not believe that. I genuinely believe that the London Oratory school and others that I have come across are trying in a difficult world to preserve their ethos. That is important. Such schools tend to be oversubscribed. Many parents living in inner-city areas find it quite difficult to gain access to really good education unless they are prepared to pay for a private school—most cannot afford to do so—or unless they get a priest to sign a chit in order to get the child into a faith school.
It is distressing to attend open meetings at such schools as I have done, because one comes to realise that some are oversubscribed by as much as 8:1. Many parents will be bitterly disappointed at not getting their children a place. What can be done by those who run schools that are so oversubscribed? They are comprehensive schools: that is in the statute. They cannot select on ability—we are not going to have that debate again. It is only fair that a Catholic school should give preference to Catholics and an Anglican school should give preference to Anglicans. I presume that the same applies to Jewish schools, although I suspect that the constituency for that faith is much smaller and easier to manage.
If we are going to give preference, how should it be done? What is the best way to do it? The best way is surely to interview. It will be said that interviews cause much stress and difficulty. Frankly, the stress is not due to the interview but to being turned down—often for what are thought to be unfair reasons. It will be said that a form can be filled in by the local priest—I presume that the same applies in the Anglican world—and that the form is supposed to determine one’s commitment. If a Catholic school is oversubscribed by 8:1 or 7:1, or even 6:1, we are surely agreed that it should give preference to people who are strongly committed to their faith. That is a given, but how does one determine it?
I have seen the form. I also know that some London parishes are booming because of the great influx of people from the Philippines, from Poland and from other areas. In some parishes in the outer areas of inner London, 2,000 or 3,000 people are coming to services on Sunday mornings. How can the parish priest possibly know whether or not someone is a keen Catholic? We all know what goes on. Because parents are so desperate to get their children into the few faith schools, they will turn up at church a few times, if possible make themselves known to the parish priest and get the priest to sign the form because they want their child to get into a faith school—all because the other schools are rubbish. It is virtually impossible for many priests to know who is in their parish and to give a proper rÃ(c)sumÃ(c) of their faith, so a lot of cheatinggoes on.