Religious Schools: Admission Policies

Lord Polak Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord talks absolute sense.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, although purporting to promote tolerance, the humanist campaign is in fact aimed at limiting access for people of faith to state-funded education. Does the Minister agree that, rather than give credence to those who want to limit parental choice, we should protect our British values, promote tolerance and respect the rights of parents?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My noble friend is completely correct. One of the most powerful things in our education system is diversity, and faith schools exist simply because there is huge demand for them. As I mentioned earlier, they have a higher level of oversubscription than most other school systems. They are required to teach a broad and balanced curriculum, and they are inspected by Ofsted on that basis.