Andrew Gray is a Harrogate advocate, entrepreneur and dad. Formerly a solicitor who founded and ran a local law firm, he is chief executive of political tech firm Suffrago and a local content creator.

Harrogate is a bit like Belfast. Really. Both are deeply religious places. Pious Harrogate even had an Orange Order march in 2012. And religious discrimination plays a part in both.

In Belfast, religious discrimination has violent ramifications and is often discussed. In Harrogate, of course, there is no violence, but as with a few other issues in these parts, we prefer not to confront what is plainly in front of us.

What is the source of my beef: the acceptance, for so long, of religious discrimination in the allocation of school places that has weakened our town.

Don’t believe me that we are a deeply religious town? Then just look around. We have churches and religious buildings on every corner.

Take the Victoria Avenue corridor. Starting where it meets West Park and moving south, there is the United Reformed Church, then the Spiritual Healing Church, then St Paul’s, next to St Peter’s School, and nearby the new mosque on Tower Street, just a stone’s throw from St Robert’s Catholic Church. Further up Victoria Avenue there is the Baptist Church, and then the Quaker Meeting House where it meets Queen’s Parade.

The beating heart of Harrogate is St Peter’s. And at Wesley Chapel there is always something going on. Believer or not, Harrogate is a deeply religious place, in spite of the practice of religious discrimination at school allocation level.

These are not the grumpy words of an angry atheist. Quite the opposite. I have been attending one of the above religious groups since 2008.

Nor do I have any problem with religion having a visible place in town life. My concern is what happens when religion is tied to access to state schools, and how that distorts behaviour right across Harrogate.

Schools and religion

Before we had children, back around the financial crash, someone explained to me that to get into certain schools in town we would need religious paperwork. I thought it was a joke. “This is 2009. That’s ridiculous, discriminatory and so very eighteenth century.” Fast forward to today, and it still exists.

School catchment areas have some underlying logic. But if all taxpayers contribute to the system, yet some cannot access some schools on equal terms because of religion, we should call that what it is: discrimination.

And as everyone in this town knows, families suddenly discover religion when their eldest child turns nine.

Then begins the Oscar-quality, years-long act. Parents attend church every Sunday. Their child reads in church. The family sings hymns. Perhaps a younger sibling joins Cubs or Scouts too. Then ‘the form’ appears, and a priest or vicar is asked to sign it. Everyone knows what is going on. It is as if we are all actors in The Truman Show and have forgotten that we are acting.

This is not a criticism of parents. In fact, the opposite. Loving parents do what parents always do: try to secure the best opportunities for their children within the rules that exist. In Harrogate, that makes feigned religious adherence the state-school equivalent of paying for private education. Because, bluntly and uncomfortably, it is the sharper-elbowed middle classes who are most adept at playing the game.

This infects the whole town.

It means our children learn that systems can be gamed; that low-level dishonesty is normal; and that the institutions which have shaped our society are rotten. And the rot is not just in the rule. It is in the shared pretence.

Playing the game

One atheist family I know played the game perfectly. Every Sunday, off to church so they could get a religious place at their local school. Their attendance was immaculate. Yet when the application went in, the clergy said they did not recognise them and wrote on the form: “Family not known at this church.” Cue appeal. The appeal succeeded once the paperwork was tested. Faith had nothing to do with it. Documentation did.

Meanwhile, children across our town are separated from their friends because their parents were prepared to perform belief, or not. There are few sadder moments in childhood than realising, aged 10, that a friendship group is to be dismantled by a discriminatory system that you didn’t know existed.

Even employment in our schools is not immune. If the world-renowned evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins applied for a teaching job at a Catholic school such as St John Fisher, under The Equality Act 2010, it would not necessarily be unlawful for the school to prefer someone of the Catholic faith.

And spare a thought for the clergy. Many vicars did not train in theology in order to become admissions gatekeepers. They know they are being played. They know congregations swell for reasons that have little to do with God.

Scrap the system

So, I urge the clergy of Harrogate to lead the call to scrap this system. You may fear a drop in attendance. But institutions are degraded when their values are gamed. Instead, be loud and proud about your faith and you will see your congregations swell. Just look at the example set by some the new churches that now book-out hotel conference rooms.

And our local politicians should show some backbone, too.

Because this is about more than schools. Harrogate has a habit of sweeping awkward truths under the carpet. I intend to write about others. But this is a meta problem. If children grow up watching adults pretend that something egregious and discriminatory is normal, they build that muscle themselves. They learn to go along, to keep quiet, to treat the indefensible as just the way things are.

If we want our town to be fair, decent and honest, then this system of religious discrimination in school admissions must end. We should not need parents to simulate belief to secure a school place. And we certainly should not teach our children that the way to succeed in Harrogate is simply to play along with a system everyone knows is wrong.