Schools: Admission Policies Debate

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Department: Department for Education

Schools: Admission Policies

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts
Monday 22nd July 2013

(11 years, 3 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Asked by
Baroness Bakewell Portrait Baroness Bakewell
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To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have plans to encourage religiously selective schools to adopt more open admission policies.

Lord Nash Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
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My Lords, the coalition supports inclusive admission arrangements. New faith academies and free schools may admit only half their intake based on faith where they are oversubscribed. The Government also remain strongly committed to faith schools, which play a long-established role in our diverse education system. They allow parents to choose a school in line with their faith and they make a significant contribution to educational standards in this country.

Baroness Bakewell Portrait Baroness Bakewell
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I thank the Minister for that Answer. However, in the light of the government announcement last week of a funding initiative for 6,000 new schools, and given that this year the Department for Education has already accepted 16 new Christian schools and six Muslim schools, and that the Cantle report into the 2001 riots cited religious and ethnic fragmentation as an underlying cause, will the Minister tell us whether this Government believe that the children of this country should be integrated or segregated?

Lord Nash Portrait Lord Nash
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This Government believe strongly that one of the secrets for success in this country is that children should be integrated and that all schools should teach a balanced all-faith curriculum, even if they have a particular faith-based thesis. We will not make a long-term success of this country unless we can succeed in doing what the noble Baroness has mentioned.