New Education Secretary Refuses to “Water Down” Faith in Education Bill

|TOP|Alan Johnson, the new Education Secretary has said that he will not make any changes to the government’s proposed Education Bill. Johnson stated that he refused to “water down” the bill simply to appease Labour rebels.

The education secretary said that reaching a cross-party consensus was vital for education, and he commended his shadow party counterpart, David Willets of the Conservative party for his input in the debate.

Since taking over as Education Secretary from Ruth Kelly, Johnson has been scrutinised on faith schools and private-funded city academies.

In particular, many have expressed their concerns over faith-based schools of a fundamentalist nature in the government’s education reforms.

Claims of honours and peerages being offered to rich business leaders in exchange for sponsoring academies have been rife in previous weeks, as well as some sceptics saying that certain schools are too strongly focused on certain types of Christian teaching.

|AD|Johnson was speaking at the Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney, East London, when he said, “We won't water down the principles of this bill.”

He said that his firm intention was for the bill to pass into law, no matter which method was taken – with Labour or Conservative backing.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Tony Blair had to rely upon Conservative support to get the Education Bill through its second reading in the House of Commons.

Johnson commented that the Labour members were fully supportive of the Prime Minister’s policies, saying, “For the majority who have concerns about a stable transition, it is not about policy. They agree with us on policy.”

Labour ministers have had to make a number of changes to reforms to win more support for the Education Bill, with a large number of backbenchers worried over the issues of selection, and the intention to give faith schools and private businesses more control over state schools.