Instead of Readers’ Forum we are publishing a reader’s letter every day. Please send submissions to info@conservativewoman.co.uk and put ‘Letter of the day’ in the subject bar.
Instead of Readers’ Forum we are publishing a reader’s letter every day. Please send submissions to info@conservativewoman.co.uk and put ‘Letter of the day’ in the subject bar.
Dear Editor
I have sent the following letter to the Daily Telegraph.
Labour’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill sounds noble – who would oppose child welfare? Yet it’s a squeeze on faith schools and home education, tightening state control over what children learn and believe. Clause 19 lets ministers dictate academy curricula, threatening faith schools’ distinct ethos – 40 per cent of their heads already report Ofsted bias (TES, 2024). Meanwhile, VAT hikes could force 30 per cent of these independents to close (IFS, 2025), hitting religious communities hardest. Home education faces new registers, pitched as ‘safeguarding’ but mirroring France’s 2021 ban. ‘They’re boxing us in,’ one desperate parent told me, a sentiment echoed across X’s #ProtectParentalRights campaign.
This fits a secular push: a 350-year trend since the Enlightenment, where evolution reigns as unchallenged fact – 98 per cent of scientists agree (Nature, 2014), though 2 per cent dissent and hundreds of millions globally uphold creationism. Still, alternatives like intelligent design are banned from classrooms, sidelining faith for rigid conformity. Labour’s Bill extends this long war into schools and homes. Kemi Badenoch brands it ‘a heavy-handed grab at control’ (Telegraph, January 22, 2025). She’s spot-on: 70 per cent of Britons back educational choice (2024 polls), yet Labour seems deaf to their pleas. The Rev John Taylor, a Midlands faith school head, told me: ‘VAT hikes could finish us – where’s our freedom then?’
Post-amendments, the Bill is charging ahead; Labour’s 411-seat majority may ram it through by spring, unless defiance swells. Telegraph readers, grasp this clash: state versus family.
David Gold
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