Government to keep 50% faith cap on free school admissions

Humanists are celebrating a partial victory after the Department for Education announced it will keep restrictions on faith-based admissions criteria in new state-funded free schools in England – the so-called ‘50% cap’.

However, Humanists UK, which led the campaign against these proposals, has said it is certain that new schools with 100% selective admissions policies will nevertheless come into existence unless proposals in the new Education Bill are changed. Recently, the Government voted down an amendment to restrict other kinds of new schools from opening with 100% religiously selective admissions policies.

Consultation outcome

The announcement about free schools is in response to the ‘faith designation reforms’ consultation launched by the Sunak Government just before the General Election, which proposed allowing 100% religious selection in all state-funded faith schools and opening faith-based special academies for the first time ever. Both of those proposals have been rejected: the result of the consultation was that 66% of respondents disagreed with both.

Commenting on the announcement Humanists UK Chief Executive Andrew Copson said:

‘The decision to keep the 50% cap for free schools is a victory for social cohesion, mutual understanding, and the interests of children. It is also a significant victory for Humanists UK, its supporters, and partners who have led the campaign to keep the cap in place. But it is a pyrrhic one as the Government is certain to allow the same thing now by other means.

‘The Government needs to listen to the public who want the cap to stay. It should listen to the arguments for promoting cohesion and the principles of inclusivity. Allowing 100% religious discrimination in state-funded faith schools will affect thousands of school places and force parents and guardians of local children who are of no religion or the “wrong” religion to look further afield for their child’s schooling. We  look forward to working with ministers and officials, and making the argument for a single admissions system where all state schools are open to children from any background or belief.’

Context to the decision

State-funded faith schools are allowed to religiously discriminate in who they admit as pupils, if they are oversubscribed. However, in 2007, the then Labour Government limited this discrimination to no more than 50% of places for all new Academies. In 2010 this was extended by the Coalition to all new Free Schools, which since 2011 has meant all new schools. In its last months, Sunak Government proposed to remove the cap for both existing schools subject to it and any new ones that open in the future.

Following that announcement, Humanists UK brought together religious leaders including the former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, parliamentarians, education experts, and prominent public figures to call on the the Government to keep the restrictions in place. Responding to the consultation, it condemned the proposals as a ‘step backwards for social cohesion’ which would ‘significantly undermine the principles of inclusivity which all governments should be striving to increase.’

The new Government has now said it will keep the free school cap, but it will allow other types of 100% religiously selective school to open instead. Humanists UK has said that it should listen to the public who have clearly now said they don’t want any new 100% selective faith schools.