The Accord Coalition for Inclusive Education has urged the new Education Secretary Damian Hinds to implement inclusive reforms and ensure personal interests do not influence his new public duties.
Commenting on the Minister’s appointment and questions over his impartiality Accord Coalition Steering Group member, the Reverend Stephen Terry, said ‘The Education Secretary should prioritise boosting the long term health and well-being of pupils and wider society. To achieve this – and to uphold Ministerial Code requirements to separate public duties from any private interests – the Minister should focus on the evidence and expressed needs of children.
The Accord Coalition has previously reported on Damian Hinds. As a member of the House of Commons Education Select Committee in 2011 he criticised the extent to which the annual report from the Chief Schools Adjudicator censored faith schools for breaking the Schools Admissions Code.
In 2014 he introduced a debate in Parliament on admissions to Catholic schools where he complained about the 50% faith free school discrimination cap and framed Catholic schools as not being socially exclusive. In response the Fair Admissions Campaign – which the Accord Coalition helped to co-found in 2013 – set out how the Catholic state school sector in fact admits a socially advantaged intake and compounds social-economic disadvantage.
In a further question regarding the Minister’ impartiality, the Accord Coalition member group Humanists UK reports today that Mr Hinds received funding for his parliamentary office from the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales in 2014/15.
The Catholic Church of England and Wales is currently boycotting the free schools programme in protest at the faith free schools discrimination cap. This is despite the fact that most private Catholic schools in England and Wales and most Catholic schools in other countries do not select pupils on faith grounds.
Notes
The Ministerial Code requires ‘Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or could principle reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests’ (p15).
