Opposed to the 50% cap
The Catholic Education Service for England and Wales has boycotted the free schools programme since 2010, refusing to set up any new free schools under the 50% cap.
Board of Deputies of British Jews, while noting the diversity of opinion within the Jewish community on this issue, has similarly stated that the 50% cap has prevented more Orthodox Jewish free schools from opening.
https://www.bod.org.uk/wp…/Justine-Greening-letter-on-faith-cap-26072016-2.pdf
In favour of keeping the 50% cap
Amanda Spielman, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Ofsted: ‘Admission 100% on faith leads to increased levels of segregation within communities’. I am uncomfortable with anything that leads to increased segregation’
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/single-faith-schools-pledge-faces-axe-df3nkzm08
Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan: ‘The government should not be bringing forward measures that make integration less likely.’
https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/motions_plenary_2_november_reply_from_mayor.pdf
London’s Deputy Mayor for Social Integration, Social Mobility and Community Engagement, Matthew Ryder QC: ‘The mayor and I share the view that it is imperative that every effort is made to encourage people of different backgrounds to mix as much as possible, and this is true in our schools as it is in workplaces and communities. We are therefore concerned that the Government’s proposals to remove the 50 per cent cap for religious free schools could represent a threat to the drive to pursue greater integration in our schools.’
https://humanism.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/London-Assembly-motion-re-faith-schools.pdf
Sutton Trust: Lifting the 50% cap is ‘likely to make [faith schools] even more unrepresentative of their local areas, reducing the number of good school places available to pupils across the socio-economic spectrum. The admissions process for faith schools should instead be opened up so that their admissions are fairer and begin to reflect their local population’.
Education Policy Institute: ‘If the objective of government policy is to increase social mobility, this policy intervention is unlikely to be effective.’
http://epi.org.uk/report/faith-schools-pupil-performance-social-selection/
Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE): ‘Concerns remain over proposals to remove the 50% cap on the number of children admitted to schools on religious grounds in new and current faith schools, on the basis that it will entrench segregation and undermine community cohesion…The 50% cap on the number of children admitted to schools on religious grounds should remain in place for new and current faith schools.’
http://www.crae.org.uk/publications-resources/state-of-childrens-rights-in-england-2017/
Kevin Courtney, General Secretary, National Union of Teachers: ‘If in our society we want children of different faiths to be educated together as part of building a good society, then all schools should be open to some children at least, of all faiths.’
https://twitter.com/Humanists_UK/status/783275337274822656
Association of Teachers and Lecturers: ‘[The Education Policy Institute’s] report is timely, adding crucial and up-to-the-minute evidence to the wealth of existing research which challenges the government’s politically driven assertion that increasing the number of faith schools will increase social mobility.’
https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/faith-schools-risk-increasing-social-segregation
Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson, Lord Storey: ‘the abolition of the 50% cap in our faith schools will mean that even more of our children will be separated and segregated by their religion’. He argued instead for ‘an open education system that does not segregate any pupil because of their ability or their faith—a system in which no child is left behind’.
Labour’s Shadow Education Spokesperson, Lord Watson: ‘[T]he Government want to facilitate a policy that will harden the divisions between children by ensuring that those not of a certain faith will be shut off from their neighbours and friends…Walls are dismantled by people coming together, not by keeping them apart. Further selection on the grounds of faith will lead to more pupils being discriminated against.’
http://www.labourlords.org.uk/code_philosophy
Green Party: Party policy states that ‘there exists a range of inequality within our education system. This can often stem from unfair admissions processes, particularly in private schools, grammar schools, faith schools, free schools and academies. These processes often serve to work against the most disadvantaged young people in our society (such as those from poorer backgrounds or ethnic minorities). In order to provide an equal opportunity for all young people then admissions must be as balanced and fair as possible.’ Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas also wrote to the Prime Minister in November 2017 urging her ‘not to proceed with the proposal to abolish the limit which prevents faith-based free schools selecting more than 50% of pupils on religious grounds.’
https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ed.html and https://humanism.org.uk/2016/11/07/religious-leaders-parliamentarians-and-education-experts-call-for-government-u-turn-on-faith-school-admission-proposals/
Professor Ted Cantle, Institute for Community Cohesion Foundation: ‘the evidence is unequivocal. Religious selection in school admissions is utterly deleterious for integration. And not just for religious integration, but for ethnic and socio-economic integration too…the more diverse our society becomes, the more integrated it needs to be, and if there is anyone around who is prepared to honestly say, with their hand on their heart, that single-faith, mono-cultural schools represent part of the solution rather than part of the problem, I sincerely hope they do not have the ear of the Government.’
British Muslims for Secular Democracy is a member of both the Fair Admissions Campaign and the Accord Coalition for Inclusive Education, which campaign against removing the 50% cap and for an end to religious selection in school admissions altogether.
http://accordcoalition.org.uk/2010/01/11/british-muslims-for-secular-democracy-joins-accord/
Ekklesia, Christian think tank: ‘To take large amounts of taxpayers’ money and use it to deny some children entry to publicly-funded schools because they are from the ‘wrong’ belief background, offends natural justice in a plural society. Excluding pupils because of their faith background or lack of it, or putting parents into a position where they have to lie about their beliefs to get their children into a school with limited places: such things are not ‘Christian’, they are morally wrong.’
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/14619
National Secular Society: ‘Facilitating more religious segregation in faith schools can only harm social cohesion.’
Rabbi Jonathan Romain, Accord Coalition for Inclusive Education: ‘At a time when social cohesion is needed more than ever, the Tories’ pledge to ghettoise religious schools is shocking…If the Government really values children knowing each other better, then why not have them in class together?’
Fair Admissions Campaign: ‘This move takes the education system in entirely the wrong direction, at a time when we should be encouraging more integration not less.’
Department for Education, January 2016: ‘the requirement for all oversubscribed faith free schools to make at least 50% of their places available to those of another or no faith helps to tackle segregation and ensures young people will experience the diversity of religious beliefs that make up modern Britain.’
67% Catholics responded to a May 2017 poll by stating their preference for new faith schools to continue operating under the current 50% cap on religious selection. 80% of the population as a whole also prefer to keep the cap.
Humanists UK: ‘Bizarrely, rather than celebrate the evident success of a policy it helped to introduce, the Government has chosen to massage the figures in a way that misleadingly presents the cap as a failure. This…champions the will of the religious lobby over the better interests of children.
‘The pretence of a religious objection appears to be an insidious political tactic to try to force through a policy change favourable to the Catholic Church but unpopular with the public and incredibly detrimental to integration and fairness in the education system.’
The consensus is clear. #keepthecap