A battle over faith schools is raging within the Conservative party after hints the new education secretary Damian Hinds would scrap a cap forcing religious schools to give half their places to pupils from other religious backgrounds.
Hinds replaced Justine Greening at the Department for Education last week with reports that Greening was personally opposed to faith schools.
A Catholic, Hinds came under fire after his appointment for accepting £5,000 from the Catholic Church in 2014 to pay for a parliamentary intern. Bishops insist the cap prevents them from opening any more Catholic schools because it breaks the Church's Canon Law to turn Catholic pupils away, purely on the basis of their faith, which the cap forces them to do.
Hinds is understood to support removing the cap, a move pledged in the Tories' 2017 election manifesto but ignored under Greening. The restriction was put in place under David Cameron when the Conservatives were in coalition with the Lib Dems to force children of different backgrounds to mix and to counter extremism.
Senior Tory MPs urged Theresa May to go 'slow and careful' with the plans allow religious schools to accept 100 per cent of pupils from one religion to avoid 'ghettoisation'.
But Sir Edward Leigh, Conservative MP for Gainsborough and President of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, told Hinds to press ahead with the 'urgent' changes.
Writing to Hinds on Tuesday he said he hoped he would 'consider urgently lifting this cap and honouring the Government's promise to parents and voters'.
He said: 'The need for new School places is urgent and dire as the Catholic sector has had to educate an additional 50,000 pupils since 2010 without being able to open more schools.
'Tens of thousands of pupils have therefore missed out on a Catholic school place due to this lack of capacity.'
But former minister and chair of the education select committee Robert Halfon said schools should always have to give 'a significant minority" of place to those with different beliefs. While praising faith schools he said it was important parents of other religions could send their children there.
'I am a supporter of faith schools given their academic record,' he said according to the Evening Standard. 'Catholic schools have amongst the highest success in the country.'
He said the cap could be eased 'as long as there is opportunity for a significant minority of non-faith pupils to go the schools'.
He added: 'I think if we want more free schools we need to look again at the cap. It hasn't worked as intended. I suspect with slow and careful handling a change could be made, but I am not sure it's a priority for Damian.'
A Department for Education spokesperson said: 'We want to go further to ensure all young people have access to a good school place and we are keen for faith groups to play a key role in this. Many faith schools are high-performing and are more likely to be rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted than non-faith schools.'
