School Admissions Code

Lord Taverne Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taverne (LD)]

My Lords, I should declare an interest as a member of the British Humanist Association. Religious discrimination in schools admissions is one of the reasons why faith schools are often a divisive influence in society. The Ulster experience shows how divisive they can be, have been and still are. In his report on the 2001 race riots, Professor Cantle described the actions that need to be taken to integrate instead of divide different religious and racial communities. He is one of the severest critics of the admissions policies of faith schools today, saying:

“The system by which religious schools are able to set their own admissions criteria is clearly not fit for purpose … Schools should be places that reflect our society as a whole, and it should be through schools that children are introduced to the full diversity of our society, learning to understand, respect and tolerate those from backgrounds different to their own. Only by making our schools inclusive and free from discrimination can we achieve this aim”.

Those are wise words.

Of course, it is natural that family and home backgrounds will influence children’s views and beliefs, but schools should not put children into categories of belief. They should be places that make children think for themselves; we do not treat children as Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or UKIP children, so why should we let schools treat them as Catholic, Protestant, Muslim or Jewish children? Allowing breaches of the admissions code enables and encourages them to do so.

Surely the Government can agree that, at the very least, schools should adhere to the law. Unfortunately, as the British Humanist Association’s report demonstrates, a great many schools do not. Indeed, the complexity of some schools admission policies seems to be designed to confuse and mislead, and the range of ways in which they have been discriminating are clearly designed to secure a greater homogeneity of religion in these schools.

These findings are not just those of the BHA, which the Government, who support faith schools, no doubt dismiss as partisan. The Office of the Schools Adjudicator, the statutory guardian responsible for enforcing the code, has found widespread violation. It is not just this year that there have been more than a thousand breaches, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, pointed out; there have also been numerous breaches in the two years before. So what has been the Government’s response? They have banned society organisations from making representations on breaches of the code. Only selected individuals, who will be in a much less good position to deal with the complexities of the code, are allowed to make those representations. I know that the Government have received many representations on this issue. Parliamentarians have opposed the ban, the public have opposed it—even Mumsnet has opposed it. Of course, it was a Schools Minister in another place who first extended the right to object to include everyone. That was only a few years ago—and what has made the Government change their mind?

Numerous reputable organisations apart from the British Humanist Association, many of them bodies from different religions, support the fair admissions campaign. I hope the Government will take note of the advice of many of their own Back-Benchers to do more listening. I hope, in particular, that they will heed the wise words of Professor Cantle and the findings of the schools adjudicator.