Theresa May continues to brush aside her predecessor’s policies, and this week her new broom reached the world of education. Her new Secretary of State for Education, Justine Greening, announced the lifting of two government-imposed limits on the schools system. They want to see the creation of new grammar schools, at present against the law, and to encourage new faith schools with particular reference to Catholic schools. At present a requirement that limits the number of children of that faith in new schools to half of all the pupils has effectively blocked expansion of the Catholic school network, which is about 10 per cent of the whole state system – and often oversubscribed.

The grammar school proposal is controversial even inside the Conservative Party, and may yet be defeated; the change regarding faith schools will be noisily resisted by secularists but it should be accepted as fair. It corrects an injustice that has prevented the Catholic school system fulfilling its potential as an asset to the Church and to wider society.