Your attack on Michael Gove for personally signing off funding for the security of Jewish schools through the Community Security Trust was ill-conceived (27 January). The meeting you allude to was attended by myself and other MPs and was a direct response to the all-party parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism, a model of cross-party co-operation that has been emulated in several countries, including Germany. The proposal that the state should fund the security costs of state schools was one of the 35 recommendations of the inquiry and was being enacted by Ed Balls, as education secretary, when the election was called. It is appropriate and unsurprising that Michael Gove, as the new education secretary, determined to meet the request, and it is to his credit that he did so in the midst of government cutbacks. For the record, the group’s work was endorsed by all three party leaders, by minority parties, and well received across parliament.
John Mann MP
Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism
This letter is online here and an article about the letter appears here.
