Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to preserve the anonymity of witnesses who provided evidence to the Clarke inquiry into Birmingham schools.

We take the issue of witness anonymity extremely seriously.

The independent panel overseeing the teacher misconduct case of some of the individuals involved in the events related to Trojan Horse recently ordered the full disclosure of transcripts of interviews given to Peter Clarke. As a result of the independent panel’s direction, lawyers acting on behalf of NCTL wrote to witnesses to inform them of that decision, and stated that in the event that they had any comments or concerns in relation to the disclosure of their transcripts they should contact them. Since the direction, where we have written to witnesses and we have either not yet heard back from them or they have raised concerns, no disclosures have been made. We have informed the independent panel that a number of witnesses have raised concerns, and the panel has indicated that it wishes to consider the issue at a further hearing.

These issues are part of a set of complex legal proceedings and it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.