Proposals to force faith schools across England to accept intake from other faiths and those of no faith have been abandoned, Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary has reported.
Explaining the decision, Johnson was quoted as saying that new legislation to implement those proposals were now unnecessary following the Roman Catholic Church's decision to also allocate a quarter of all its places to non-Catholic students.
Controversy was sparked across faith schools when the proposals were made public last week in an amendment to the Education and Inspections Bill. The government had told that schools should be used to ease problems with social division.
However, in a U-turn on Thursday, Johnson stated that the proposed laws were no longer necessary.
The Church of England had previously said that all of its new schools would implement measures to voluntarily accept up to 25 per cent of its pupils from those of other faiths.
