Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Answer by Baroness Barran on 15 December (HL Deb col 297), what estimate they have made of (1) the number of madrassas in England, and (2) the number of children that attend them; whether they have made an assessment of whether radical Islamist views are being taught in those madrassas; and if so, what were the conclusions of that assessment.

The department does not hold a register of madrassas and has not made an estimate of the number of madrassas or the number of children attending them.

Madrassas are generally considered to be out-of-school settings, which are not captured by a single dedicated regulatory framework, and are not subject to inspections by Ofsted or the department.

Local authorities are, however, legally responsible for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children in their areas, including when attending out-of-school settings. To support local authorities with their existing safeguarding duties, the department has been taking forward a package of measures to enhance safeguarding in out-of-school settings, safeguarding children from all forms of harm, including extremism and terrorism.

This package of activity has included over £3 million of targeted funding to selected local authorities to examine ways to boost local capacity to identify and intervene in out-of-school settings of concern, and to test the utility of existing powers and engagement approaches for undertaking safeguarding activity in these settings. The final phase of this work concluded end of December last year, and we are currently considering the next steps for this work.

In addition, the department has also published a voluntary safeguarding code of practice to support providers, such as madrassas, to understand what they need to do to run a setting safely, and accompanying guidance for parents and carers to help them make more informed choices, including the red flags to look out for and what steps to take where they might have concerns. This is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/keeping-children-safe-in-out-of-school-settings.

If the department became aware of a setting where extremist activity was taking place or where children were at risk of harm, we would work closely with relevant agencies, such as the local authority, Ofsted and the police, to take action.