Diana Johnson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Children, Schools and Families; Kingston upon Hull North, Labour)

The Government are committed to a diverse system of schools driven by, and responsive to, parental needs and aspirations but decisions on the establishment of individual maintained schools are taken locally under established decision making arrangements with no direct role for Ministers in individual cases.

Similarly, local demand will dictate whether there is a need for an independent school and provided it can meet the regulatory standards required for entry on to the register of independent schools, an independent school can be established to meet parental needs.

We highly value the contribution that all maintained faith schools make to education in the maintained sector but do not distinguish between different faiths. The Government will accordingly continue to support the establishment of new schools including faith schools in the maintained sector where the local decision making process shows that is what parents and the local community want and where the school is willing and able to comply with the requirements on all maintained schools. However, we do not have any centrally driven targets for the establishment of new faith schools of any type.