Faith schools are under fire for failing to tackle LGBT bullying after a report found religious based schools are consistently worse than others are tackling abuse.

Stonewall's third five-yearly report claimed 'LGBT pupils in faith schools are more likely than those in non-faith schools to say that teachers and school staff never challenge homophobic, biphobic and transphobic language when they hear it'.

Faith schools also reported the lowest proportion of pupils saying their school teaches homophobic and biphobic bullying is wrong. Just 57 per cent of children at religiously based schools said staff taught against gay bullying compared to 68 per cent at wider schools as a whole.

Chair of the Accord Coalition for Inclusive Education, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, said: 'Schools are captive environments. That many in Britain are still failing to provide a secure and healthy environment for LGBT pupils is a national scandal.'

He added: 'Especially worrying is the complacency by the faith school sector, which is not making a special effort to tackle LGBT discrimination. It is yet again found to lag behind all other types of school, despite having been repeatedly shown to be more likely to fail their LGBT pupils.'

Stonewall's report found seven per cent of LGBT pupils experience physical bullying, which includes being hit, punched, kicked or having objects thrown at them.

The charity said boys are three times more likely than girls to be bullied with physical abuse, while trans pupils are twice as likely to experience physical bullying than lesbian, gay and bi pupils who are not trans.