My Lords, one of the gravest mistakes made by the Government in 1997 was to let it be known that they would consider sympathetically state funding for more religious schools. When I was Secretary of State for Education, I had no requests from either the Anglican Church or the Catholic Church for new schools. In fact, several were being closed at the time. I did receive requests from evangelical Christians, from Muslims and from Jews. I turned those requests down. I did not do that because I am a humanist. Indeed, I am an Anglican. I went to a Church of England primary school, Holy Trinity up in Southport. We went to church twice a year and were taught some Bible stories. I was certainly told that I was not one of the elect, but my experience framed the sort of Anglicanism with which I am comfortable. There was no passionate intensity or proselytising zeal; rather there was devotion, kindness and forgiveness.

I, too, believe that there should be a spiritual aspect in children's education. Indeed, in the preamble to the Education Reform Act, which I put on the statute book, there is a recognition of the word "spiritual"—it is in the very title of the legislation. I ensured that that was implemented in the Bill by providing for local community SACRE committees to come together to agree the terms of religious observance recognising all religions.

I regret that the Government have adopted their policy because I think that the new faith schools—rather unlike the one that I went to—have become very exclusive. That is what they wanted to do and that is what their proponents wanted from them, which is regrettable. So what can the Government do? First, they should not give approval to any more faith schools. Secondly, I hope that they will say to those schools that have been approved that they expect a quota of at least a third of students admitted to be drawn from other religions. I would give the schools two years to comply. The Government are quite versed in quotas—they are rather keen on them—in other aspects of the education system, so this will not be an unfamiliar process for them. If the schools do not reach that target within, say, two years, the funding should be withdrawn. Thirdly, these are the most selective schools in the country. The Government have recognised that. In one of the concessions that Mr Blair made this week he said that faith schools would no longer interview parents. However, that is a meaningless concession. The communities know where the faith schools are; the teachers know where their pupils are going to come from; and many can be selected by surname rather than by interview.

I do not speak in any way from an anti-religious point of view, as I have made clear. However, particularly in a week when our society in Britain has been under considerable pressure in one way or another, those communities and religions that have come to our country, which we welcome, should accept that they should live within the broad British tradition—and that broad British tradition is one not of exclusion but one of inclusion, of tolerance, of forbearance, of hearing the other person's point of view, of give and take. Those are the qualities that we should be promoting today in our society; we should not be dividing children at an early age on account of their religion.