Labour conference: Parents' schools choice can lead to community division

Shahid Malik, cohesion minister in the Department of Communities and Local Government, made the acknowledgement in response to a speech by Hetan Shah, chief executive of education charity DEA.

"I have personal experience of this issue," said Malik, speaking at the Labour fringe event Learning Difference: Can Schools Teach Community Cohesion? "The school that I attended as a child was around five per cent black, minority and ethnic, which was a fair reflection of the local community at the time. But some years later I discovered it had become 100 per cent black and minority ethnic, which was not a fair reflection of the local community."

Malik suggested that white parents had withdrawn their children from that school "possibly because it did not offer the resources or learning opportunities they wanted, or possibly for more sinister reasons".

Shah warned the government that it needs to be careful in giving too much choice to parents, referring to recent research that has shown an increase in "white flights".

The research, conducted by the Institute of Community Cohesion in July, suggested that in some areas of England white children are being withdrawn from schools where they are outnumbered by children from ethnic minorities.