Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the Education Bill on church schools.

The Government has engaged regularly with the Church of England, the Catholic Church, and other faith groups regarding the Schools Bill.

The Bill includes academy specific legislation to ensure that academies with a religious character have, as far as possible, equivalent statutory protections as those that currently apply to maintained schools.

The published Schools Bill: impact assessment can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/schools-bill-impact-assessment.

This provides an assessment of the policy and equalities impacts of the measures in the Bill.