Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the Government's policy is on whether schools with no religious character can be run by religious multi-academy trusts.

A school with no religious character can be part of a religiously based multi-academy trust. This can only happen where it is approved by the Secretary of State and there is clear local support. To protect the school’s secular character and ethos we place legal safeguards within the school’s funding agreement and the Trust’s articles of association.