Education and Inspections Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 9:00 pm on 30 October 2006.

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Photo of Lord Taverne Lord Taverne Liberal Democrat 9:00, 30 October 2006

My Lords, I have also put my name to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking. I wish to express my dismay at the Government's surrender to the Catholic lobbies. I am a great admirer of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and never more so than during the discussion on a previous amendment when he showed enormous chutzpah. There he was, sounding the bugles of advance to cover his retreat.

It strikes me how much this place, the House of Lords, is out of touch with what the people as a whole think. Those who support faith schools are undoubtedly over-represented in this House. As the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has said, something like two-thirds of the population do not want government money spent on faith schools. I feel rather uncomfortable in finding myself, for once, in tune with the majority.

I suspect the reason that many people do not want this is because they do not like the idea that children should be treated as Muslim, Jewish, Protestant and Catholic children. If you think about it, it is as wrong as if you treat them as Conservative, Liberal Democrat or Labour children. Most people do not want that because they feel they want children, as they become more mature, to decide for themselves what and what not to believe in.

It is perfectly true that religion is overwhelmingly determined by an accident of birth: who your parents are and where you are born. That is not true of all—there are converts—but of most. I suspect that even as reasonable a group as the Bishops in this House, if they had been born in a Muslim country, would now be imams rather than bishops. As children learn to think critically and become more mature, they often abandon the religion of their parents. That is one of the reasons why there is a decline in church attendances—not in the case of the Muslim community, but then if one turns out to be a Muslim apostate there are certain rather severe penalties.

The fact is that faith schools seek to ensure that the children they teach stay within the fold. I agree with the remarks made by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, in the last debate on this subject. I support this amendment because it seems to be the only way to limit the role of indoctrination and to leave children as free as possible to make their own decisions about what to believe.