Toby Perkins
Main Page: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)Department Debates - View all Toby Perkins's debates with the Department for Education
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Michael Gove
That is a very good point. Today we have outlined that we plan to consult on independent school standards, so that schools that are not funded by the taxpayer must meet basic standards of promoting British values, or the Education Secretary will have the capacity to close them down. We are also taking steps to work with the Association of Muslim Schools UK to see what more can be done.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The Education Secretary either omitted or did not get the opportunity fully to respond to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) about Park View. For the sake of clarity, will he explain why Park View was not allowed to open a free school but was allowed to sponsor Golden Hillock to become an academy?
Michael Gove
Before any free school can be opened a very high bar must be cleared. A separate set of criteria were judged in this case, and the Minister responsible decided that for that specific free school application, the bar was not cleared.