Education Bill

Debate between Lord Boswell of Aynho and Lord McAvoy

Monday 18th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. Many of us have a strong interest in faith schools. I speak as a practising Anglican. I am heartened that on the whole the debate has not reinforced the view that we would take comfort from the ghettoisation of schools. They should be able to exist in our society, give of their own merits and receive of their own experiences from other citizens of different faiths. Some of the most impressive schools that I have seen—without exception, as it happens—have been Anglican schools that have a high Muslim component because that is what has happened to the demography in that particular area.

I want not to prolong the debate but to widen it slightly into a different consideration that can also be met by Amendment 138, to which I am sympathetic. If I may avert to the interest of noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, in wider issues of community cohesion, on which she has a strong record, many of us would be committed to that.

It has always seemed to me that the debates that we have about multiculturalism are often misconceived. The ideal that I want is people who believe in something and have a body of beliefs that they exemplify and wish to express along with fellow believers in their own school. They thereby have an ability to look within their own community but at the same time reach outwards to other communities. They are not doing it in an exclusive or inhibitory way; they are saying, “This is what we stand for but we listen to you, respect you, welcome you in and enjoy having you as participants”. I therefore feel strongly that as our society evolves we ought to be getting to a position where people may have their inner beliefs that will differ in many ways, or their own particular characteristics, but at the same time they are prepared to share a common citizenship, a common space and a common respect. The way that these amendments are conceived may help us to lead towards that. There should be no ghettoisation but a sensible inclusion—that is the way that I hope this debate is now going.

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend, as he says in this debate. My noble friend Lady Massey has cited Northern Ireland. If you want, and I normally do, we can go back to 1176 when the Welsh allowed Pembroke, otherwise known as Strongbow, to first invade Ireland, and that was the start of the Troubles—English and Norman interference in Ireland. It is a long-term issue.

What is coming across to me from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and certainly from my noble friend Lady Massey, is that faith schools—especially Catholic schools, it seems—are an inherently bad thing; they do bad things and they are not good for society. Among colleagues here there is a certain detachment from reality because that is not how they are perceived outside. It is completely unfair—