Education Regulations and Faith Schools

Lord Beith Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) on securing this debate. It is a shame that so few Members are here for this debate on an extremely important subject. The two previous speakers have made important points, to which I am sure the Minister has been listening.

Let me say straight away that this is a matter of conscience, so I speak for nobody but myself. I have a lot of sympathy with what has been said, particularly on tolerance, and on the rights of children, which we need to think about very seriously. I come to this issue from a different angle; I confess that I am an atheist, but I am probably a model of tolerance for other ways of living. I think it extremely important that schools set people up for a full life in modern Britain. I shall come on to give one or two examples of where I feel that is not happening. To me, religious education is about education, not indoctrination. I shall briefly cover four areas in my speech: admissions, staffing, curriculum and community cohesion.

On admissions, it is interesting to note that only four countries in the whole of the OECD allow state schools to select on the basis of religion: the UK, Ireland, Israel and Estonia. No other country does. In fact, we are the only country in the OECD that has a legal commitment to an act of collective worship. That law is broken in about 80% of schools every day; if we think about the number of people involved, this must be the greatest act of collective law-breaking in history. I think it is time that we looked again at the collective worship provisions of the Education Act 1944. Given that so few schools go through with this, we need to clarify the position. It is interesting that we have heard a lot about the aggression of Ofsted, but in theory, it should be marking down and reporting the schools that are not carrying out proper acts of collective worship and are therefore breaking the law.

On staffing, my party is clear is about its policy. We believe that there should be a discriminatory recruitment process only for the staff needed to carry out religious activity in schools. A lady who lives two doors away from me in Redcar found her school in south Middlesbrough taken over by the Vardy Foundation, a creationist organisation, about 10 years ago, and she had to reapply for her job. I believe that the head of the foundation has now sold the schools that he took over. That woman, who was a drama teacher, was told that her new job would largely involve biblical tableaux. Not surprisingly, she left the school, and subsequently pursued a very successful career at a different school in my area. The issue of staffing is extremely important; young people deserve a range of staff to provide for their needs.

As for the curriculum—I mentioned the drama curriculum a moment ago—I suspect that that is where some of the trouble starts. Other Members have said that Ofsted appears to have been over-zealous in some of our more moderate schools. It certainly sounds as though it has, and I think that clarification is needed. However, it has recently identified various practices. I have already referred to the teaching of creationism as fact; that is happening in quite a few schools in the science and biology curriculum. It is a particular issue in the north-east, partly owing to the Vardy Foundation and some of its successor organisations.

GCSE science exam papers have been redacted in girls’ schools because the questions were deemed unacceptable. Some schools have not observed the legal obligation to teach anatomy, puberty and reproduction. Access has been denied to art or music. Schools have espoused a narrow view of the role of women and girls, homophobia, and exposure to extremist views. Those are all real, recent cases, and we need a system that is capable of picking them up.

I was a member of a parliamentary group that recently heard witnesses speak about three topics. The first was the Trojan horse situation in Birmingham, which has been well reported, so I shall not repeat all the arguments now, but I think it is well known that it was a problem for young people. We also heard from an ex-pupil from a Jewish Orthodox Haredi school in north London, who, despite having been born and raised in the United Kingdom, could speak only Yiddish at the age of 17 because he lived in such a tight, closed community. His education had been incredibly narrow. Some may say that his community is free to behave in that way, but I personally think that it is a poor preparation for life in modern Britain.

We also heard from a former Accelerated Christian Education pupil. ACE bases its entire curriculum on the Bible, and the former pupil said that he had left the school, at the age of 18, believing that the national health service and the welfare state were against biblical teaching. In other words, the teaching at the school was a cover for a very right-wing political agenda. Was that person well prepared for life in this country?

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

I realise that I approach this issue from a slightly different standpoint, but I have to say that the examples given by my hon. Friend are unbelievably alien to the experience of faith schools in areas such as Northumberland. I would not want him to think that that is what faith schools are like. The motion refers to

“the ability of faith schools to teach their core beliefs in the context of respect and toleration for others.”

I am sure that that wording reflects his views as well as mine.

[Ian Swales]

Absolutely. Indeed, my right hon. Friend has anticipated the next part of my speech. I have very little against most faith schools. The head of Ofsted is the former head of a Catholic secondary school, and he said recently that most faith schools “have nothing to fear”. There are outstanding faith schools in my constituency: Sacred Heart in Redcar and St Peter’s in South Bank, and their four Catholic feeder primary schools. The point that I was making in giving those rather extreme examples was that we need an inspection system that is fit for purpose and picks up such instances. If anyone has been given the impression that I think faith schools are riddled with this kind of thing, I wish to correct the record, because that is not what I was suggesting.