The shadow education secretary, Tristram Hunt, has said there is a case for Ofsted to be allowed to inspect religious education in faith schools, saying schools may be exacerbating religious and ethnic segregation in English cities.
Hunt was speaking at a Progress event in Westminster, where he also said Labour faced particular difficulties as what he described as the last unionist political party in the UK at a time of growing political fragmentation. He likened Labour’s travails to Charles I’s efforts to keep England, Ireland and Scotland together.
Hunt confirmed Labour will end the free schools programme, saying much of it is “used by an ever smaller number of narrower schools not actually delivering broad curriculum”.
He said: “We have particular concerns that Ofsted is not allowed to inspect religious teaching in faith schools – that seems to me to be a slightly curious situation. It is a worrying trend in terms of cultural and ethnic identification through schooling.”
Admitting that the discussion on faith schools is “hairy terrain”, Hunt said: “Our answer is making sure Ofsted inspects schools on the basis of a broad and balanced curriculum.” He said some of the state schools accused of having been taken over by hardline Sunni Muslims in Birmingham had been inspected and found technically outstanding without consideration of music, drama and arts teaching.
Hunt said the inspection in Birmingham had been too narrowly focused on the basis of literacy and numeracy rather than whether the schools were providing a broad and balanced curriculum.
“We cannot have schools as islands, either around ethnicity or religion, not cooperating or forging partnership with other schools,” he said, adding that local decisions on new schools had to take into account the need to integrate communities.
He said he understood the principle of faith schools, and that they would remain a permanent part of English education system. But he added this had to be set against Ted Cantle’s report into religious division in former mill towns in northern England, the growing divisions in terms of ethnicity and racial religious education in England’s cities, and the efforts made by Labour in Northern Ireland to break down education on the basis of faith.
Discussing the wider political terrain Hunt said some people feared “there was a spectre of mandate-free politics and that whoever wins at the next election might not have the full mandate to deliver the full programme”.
Insisting Labour was fighting for a full mandate, he said: “There is a particular challenge for the Labour party. We are the last party of the union. We are the last United Kingdom political party, rather like poor King Charles and the three kingdoms trying to hold Great Britain together, dealing with the Irish, Scottish and English when each one of them is pulling in different directions. For the Labour party we face the challenge of the SNP in Scotland and Ukip in England. We are unique in facing these political challenges in different parts of the UK while remaining a strong unionist party.
“We have reached the end point of what began in 1950 when 98% of the public were voting either Tory or Labour and we are now at this point of multi-polar politics.”
