Education Bill

Debate between Lord Peston and Baroness Murphy

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Murphy]

I shall speak to Amendment 133 in the group. It has very similar effects to Amendment 134 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. Clause 58 introduces a new power for the Secretary of State to override by order the rules that have been imported governing the employment of teachers at voluntary-controlled and foundation schools with a religious character, which allow discrimination on religious grounds in favour of reserved teachers. Of course, Clause 58 allows new and wider discrimination, so that the academy school may apply preference to the appointment, promotion or remuneration of all teachers at the school in accordance with the tenets of a religion or religious denomination. This has the potential for many thousands of teachers to be implicated in changes of rules.

I understand that the Minister for Schools, Nick Gibb, has said that, as with maintained schools, the Secretary of State would allow this change only where a strong proposal was made and a thorough consultation had been carried out. However, it seems extraordinary that any state-maintained school should be able to discriminate against teachers or staff on grounds of religion. There is no statutory guarantee that future Secretaries of State will not simply allow all schools to make this change under Clause 58. It seems strange to allow this new and potentially wide discrimination against teachers in an academy school that has transferred from a voluntary controlled school with a religious character. Amendments 133 and 134—the latter is perhaps a little weaker in terms of the consultation that it asks for—basically ask the Government to withdraw this. In the light of the discussion by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, of the legal implications, I wonder why Clause 58 is in the Bill at all.

[Lord Peston]

Noble Lords will not be surprised to know that I take it for granted, somewhat cynically, that religious schools will be biased in favour of appointing and promoting people of the same religion. That is part of human nature and it is how people carry on. I do not need to remind noble Lords that I am not qualified in the law. However, I am absolutely horrified to hear what both my noble friend Lady Turner and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, have said about the legal advice they have been given from lawyers, who are certainly well qualified to give such advice.

I have a couple of points for the Minister. First, do we have any data on what actually goes on in these religious schools? They are financed using public money but do we have data on the religious mix of their staff and of who gets promoted and who does not? Are there any facts at all that could guide us? Secondly, if the law is being broken, I am not clear who is breaking it. I would have guessed that it was the schools that were breaking the law but the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, seemed to suggest that it was the Government, so I am a bit lost on that. I wonder if the Minister could tell us something about that as well. I assume that for one lawyer who you could buy to give you one opinion, the Government could buy another one to give them a different one. That adds to my cynicism. Finally, I hope that the Minister is not going to go through a legal document sentence by sentence, otherwise we will be here past 10 pm.