Islamic schools admitting non-Muslim children is not the solution

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 4th Oct 2006

Responding to David Cameron's call for new Islamic faith state schools to admit 25% non-Muslim children, Dr Evan Harris MP, Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon and a leading campaigner for secular public services said:

"David Cameron has completely missed the point. By supporting the establishment of more state schools with a licence to discriminate and segregate, he will make the problem of our divided society much worse. There is no use in having a 25% quota of non-Muslim pupils if no such pupils apply because it is a Muslim school!"

"The problem of segregation can affect all religiously-run state schools, not just Islamic ones. By singling out the tiny number of Muslim schools for his ineffective measure and not forcing Catholic and Jewish schools to do likewise he is just scapegoating Islam. The Church of England can not and will not force its schools to admit non-believers when they are over-subscribed with their own tribe and are allowed by law to exclude other religions, and in fact "Muslim-only" non-faith schools are often created by the selection of non-Muslims to local Christian-run schools".

"The obvious solution is to ban all state schools from discriminating on religious grounds and instead work to unite communities by integrating our schools."