Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they define "vexatious" in relation to the objections submitted to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator by secularist campaigning groups over the last two years.

On 25 January 2016, the Secretary of State announced changes to the school admissions code, in order to give parents more of a say in the school admissions process so they can be confident the system works for them.

The Government proposes that only local parents and local authorities should be able to refer objections about a school’s admissions arrangements to the Schools Adjudicator. The Government wants to ensure that the Adjudicator is able to focus on any concerns which parents may have about the fairness of the admission arrangements of their local school, and that adjudications are not held up by the need to consider large numbers of objections referred by interest groups from outside the area.

The Department will conduct a full public consultation in due course and will give careful consideration to all the views expressed in that consultation.