Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the relationship between faith-based admissions policies and ethnic diversity in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools.

The department does not conduct such assessments or collect data on individual schools’ admission arrangements. The department does publish data on the ethnicity of pupils enrolled at schools in England. This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-school-and-pupil-numbers

It is for individual schools with a faith designation to decide whether or not to adopt faith-based admission arrangements, in the local context of their school.

When constructing faith-based oversubscription criteria, they must have due regard to the guidance of their religious authority, and their arrangements must comply with the School Admissions Code.