Education Bill

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, for her comprehensive statement, but I regret very much that I did not get from it the flavour of community cohesion as I perceive it. I perceive it to be cohesion within the community, not just within the school. The school must promote that by teaching children about the community that they are in. We now have free schools which will be very different from state schools. They will be free schools, so they will need that particular provision even more. We also have faith schools that will definitely be single faith schools, not schools where half the pupils or two-thirds of the pupils are from other faiths. It is extraordinarily important not only that those schools have responsibility for community cohesion but that Ofsted has the responsibility to check them for it. I am not satisfied that that point has been sufficiently accepted, so I wish to test the opinion of the House. Division on Amendment 78 Contents 141; Not-Contents 181. Amendment 78 disagreed. Amendment 79 not moved. Amendment 80 Moved by