Academies Bill [HL]

Baroness Murphy Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

Foundation schools, both Anglican and Catholic, are allowed to appoint a majority of governors, and those schools in turn have the right to be admissions authorities for their own schools if they are voluntary aided. It is a very important power that currently exists. It is not clear from the Bill—perhaps the Minister can tell us—whether the foundation retains the right to appoint a majority of governors. Does it retain the right, if it is a voluntary aided school, to be involved in the admissions process? Can he tell us broadly whether that situation is expected to continue?

[Baroness Murphy]

I support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, although he has not yet spoken to them. I also support the amendment of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley, Lady Garden and Lady Sharp.

We have not yet addressed this fundamental problem relating to faith schools. My questions at Second Reading about the status of faith schools, and the Government’s approach to encouraging the development of faith schools, have not been responded to. Does the Minister have the teeniest anxiety that a quarter of academies are presently faith schools and that the Bill will encourage more?

I shall recount a tale of two schools. I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, in his place, because I am going to talk about Brockdish primary school. He and I are probably the only two people in this Chamber who know where Brockdish is. It is my local school, serving the entire community of Brockdish. It is a Church of England school that has received an outstanding report and will be in the running to become an academy. It is an extraordinarily good school. I love it dearly and hope very much that it does become one, for all those reasons.

It was established in 1843 in the parish workhouse for the children of paupers. The curriculum then was the Catechism and the Ten Commandments for half the day. In the other half of the day, when they were not at work—they had to do some work in the fields as well—they did the three Rs. That was 160 years ago. During the past 160 years, the curriculum at Brockdish Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School has changed dramatically. As it is the only school in the village, it is entirely inclusive. If you ask people in Brockdish about the school, they will say that they do not really think of it as a religious school. Its teachers come from all faiths or none; it has a non-denominational assembly; and it gives the most brilliant education.

However, according the Bill as far as I understand it, the school has two choices when it becomes an academy. The first is that it could become more religious and more faith-based, which would be an imposition on our local community. The Minister looks puzzled. The school might have to stay with the religious denomination which it has adopted historically but from which it has gradually been moving away. Under the Bill it would have to stay like that and would have no option to become a more generalist school. There would be no choice for those of us who live in the community because the other schools are too far away. It is our local school. It is a good one and we would like it to stay as it is.

Now take the case of the Ebrahim Academy in Whitechapel, an academy school for boys. It is highly selective and employs only male Islamic teachers. The school day is, again, just like 160 years ago in Brockdish primary school, divided into two sections. The school day begins with Tahfeez, which is reciting the Koran and getting the pronunciation right, which takes up half the day. Then the national curriculum takes up the second half of the day. It is a state-funded, tax-funded madrassah for the Islamic faith.

Perhaps that is an extreme example, but there are many such faith schools. I stress that I have no objection to Sunday schools—I was a Sunday school teacher. Noble Lords might be amazed to hear it, but it is possible to deliver good Sunday school teaching without any faith whatever. I suspect that it is like the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, to Anglicanism. It was possible for me to do that and I enjoyed it greatly.

I have no objection to families teaching their faith in their own time and making sure that every child has an understanding of all religions. But is the Minister not the teeniest, weeniest bit worried about the creation of more faith schools under the freedoms that we are providing today? What reassurances can he give to those of us who do not like these divisive, incohesive schools that they will not further separate a divided community?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I must confess that I was not aware that that was the purport of the noble Baroness’s amendment. However, off the top of my head I would say that I think that those schools should.

[Baroness Murphy]

The noble Lord is raising an issue about pupils. He implied that the important thing about many of our religious schools or faith schools at the moment is that they have an open selection policy. That seems to me utterly crucial. The possibility of people of all faiths sending children to schools whose ethos and culture they like is one thing. It is certainly the case with most of the Anglican schools, some Catholic schools and some Jewish schools. However, it is not the case with many schools set up recently, such as some Christian fanatically evangelical schools, some Catholic schools and a majority of the Islamic schools, although some Islamic schools are inclusive. The point is about the selection of pupils. There is a highly concentrated, exclusive quality to some of our schools, which causes me anxiety.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I have no wish, in what I am saying, to stray at all from the current arrangements for the pupil composition of church schools, which seem to me on the whole sensible, undogmatic and tolerant. Indeed, in the village of Brockdish and every village that I know of, of course schools do not discriminate on admissions. What the noble Baroness refers to is a very small number, as I understand it, of extremely zealous schools. I have no means of knowing whether she is right or wrong but, if she is right, that is something that we should address specifically. However, to mark the whole of the church school sector, which includes thousands of excellent schools, as carrying the imprint of the excesses of the tiny number that she is talking about and amending the legislation on that basis seems to me counterproductive.