No one could blame the National Secular Society for feeling a little smug when it received an assurance last year that the Government had no plans to review the 50 per cent limit on faith-based admissions to free schools. The rule effectively prevented the Catholic Church from opening such schools, which are “free” in the sense that they aren’t controlled by a local authority and can be set up and run by parents and other groups.
But how times change. Last Friday, the Prime Minister said she intended to scrap the 50 per cent rule, describing it as an “obstacle” to the creation of “more good faith schools”. The NSS was horrified; the British Humanist Association appalled. The Catholic Education Service was delighted, of course. It said the reform would lead to “thousands of new Catholic school places across the country”.
Why did the Government abandon the cap so abruptly? In a sense, the answer is Brexit – ironically, perhaps, considering episcopal support for Britain remaining in the EU. The change is an indirect consequence of the referendum result, which led to the resignation of David Cameron, which led to Theresa May’s victory in the Tory leadership contest, which led to the appointment of a steelworker’s son called Nick Timothy as her joint Chief of Staff.
Back in January, Timothy was director of the New Schools Network. In an article that month for the ConservativeHome website, he argued that the 50 per cent cap was “effectively discriminatory” against Catholic schools. “It is almost certainly against canon law,” he noted, “for a Catholic bishop to set up a school that turned away Catholic pupils on the basis of their Catholicism”.
Questioned by the BBC, Timothy argued that “faith schools are more likely to be ethnically diverse, are more popular with parents, and are delivering a better quality education than other types of school”. It was an eye-catching assault on a metropolitan liberal shibboleth – backed up with impressive statistics.
Timothy clearly influenced the Prime Minister’s decision to lift the cap last week. Indeed, her announcement seemed closely modelled on Timothy’s ConservativeHome article. May said she would “encourage the grouping together of mono-racial and mono-religious schools within wider multi-racial and multi-religious trusts”. Timothy had urged the Government to “encourage the growth of new and existing school chains so schools that are mono-racial and mono-religious because of their geography are incorporated into multi-racial and multi-religious trusts”.
While Catholics should rejoice at the decision to scrap the rule there are two areas of concern.
First, while it is good for Catholic schools to forge links with non-Catholic schools, we need to know more about the proposed “multi-religious trusts”. What will they mean in practice?
Second, the expansion of the Catholic school system will not solve the fundamental dilemma of Catholic education: why so few Catholic pupils go on to practise their faith as adults. Catholic schools are called to pass on the treasure of faith from one generation to the next. Neither setbacks nor, indeed, triumphs must deflect us from that goal.
Poles together
The President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, has written to the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Archbishop of Canterbury, asking them to counter the xenophobia and intolerance recently shown to Polish people living in Britain.
It is completely right that Mr Duda should take this step. While it is undeniable that by and large Britain is a peaceful country where people of different backgrounds live happily side by side, it is also the case that the country has been disfigured of late by incidents of xenophobic hatred. In one case, a Polish man, Arkadiusz Jozwik, was murdered in Harlow, Essex, reportedly by a gang of teenagers. This crime appals not only Mr Duda, but the rest of us as well.
Mr Duda, as president of his country, has a right and a duty to look out for the interests of his fellow citizens abroad. His decision to write to the Church leaders should not be seen as an attempt to make Britain look bad or to score political points.
It is interesting to note that Mr Duda’s letter coincides with meetings between Polish ministers and their British counterparts. This parallel secular and sacred approach is to be welcomed as it shows that, in Mr Duda’s estimation at least, Anglican and Catholic leaders have a role to play as peacemakers and opinion-formers in Britain, and are part of the national conversation. It would be good if more politicians followed this example, involving the Church where it can help.
It is now up to Cardinal Nichols and Archbishop Welby to take practical steps to foster harmony between people of all backgrounds in this country, and in so doing, to prove Mr Duda right by showing what a positive contribution religion can make to public and national life. The Church is opposed to racism and xenophobia: now is her chance to back up words by deeds, preaching by practice.
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