Education Bill

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 88 in this group. I support my noble friend Lady Turner in her previous amendments. She has explained the issues very well and I know that she has had extensive consultation with the Minister on them. We have heard most, if not all, of her arguments before and I think that they are very powerful. I know that there is some sympathy for her arguments among various faith groups. While the issue is about religion, it is mainly, I think, about fairness and discrimination. In Amendment 88, my chief concern is the fostering of segregation in schools on the basis of religion. The change proposed by the Education Bill will make voluntary-aided faith schools the most attractive option to religious groups seeking to set up schools because they will be the easiest to set up. This is especially so if the local authority is readily in favour of the school, in which case proposals would be extremely likely to succeed. It is hard to see how this change is justified in light of the drive towards free schools and the fact that free schools cannot religiously discriminate in admissions for more than 50 per cent of their intake. Surely this is a reflection that faith-based admissions criteria should be curbed, not increased. This will increase religious segregation in admissions, extend discrimination against staff of no religion and increase the number of schools teaching faith-based religious education. I believe, as does the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, that all schools should include and educate all pupils together so that they can learn from each other instead of being segregated on religious and other grounds.