A senior Cabinet member has this week praised faith schools after visiting St Michael’s Catholic High School in Garston.

William Hague, Leader of the House of Commons, visited the Garston school, in High Elms Lane, on Thursday.

After meeting with school’s headteacher, head-boy and head-girl and the chair of governors, Mr Hague was shown round the school’s facilities and then held a Question and Answer session with students in the school chapel.

One student asked the former leader of the Conservative Party where he thought faith schools stand in the education system.

Mr Hague said: “Where do faith schools stand? They stand in a good place because most of them are very good.

“This school is a very good faith school, from what the headteacher, the Ofsted reports are saying and what Richard Harrington [MP for Watford] has told me.

“I think, the vast majority of them provide a good education.

“There has been some controversy because some of them have not been delivering the curriculum and the British values, but the Education Secretary has been looking into this and will be reporting on the outcome pretty soon.

“But I do not think we should let them give faith schools a bad name.”

The former leader of the Conservative Party will be standing down from Parliament in May after 26 years in politics.

The 53-year-old shot to prominence after making a speech at Conservative Party Conference aged just 16, where he coined the phrase “It is all right for you. You will not be here in 30 or 40 years time.”

While discussing why he got into politics, he told the sixth form: “We got involved because somebody came along and said we can change the country.

“That somebody was Margaret Thatcher.

“Even though I did that nearly forty years ago, people come up to me and they say remember that, despite me going on to be Leader of the Opposition and Foreign Secretary.

While on a tour of the music department, Mr Hague met with Giovanni Marseglia, head of music and performing arts at the Garston school, who were in the same college at Cambridge University.

The Watford Observer asked Mr Hague whether he thought Richard Harrington would be able sustain the challenge from rival parties in Watford in the upcoming general election.

He said: “He is a great MP, from what I know, he is an incredibly hard working man, I have known him for a long time and in Parliament he stands up for Watford extremely well.

“He represents people on all the local issues and is a very active MP, but I do not know about the other candidates, but I know he personally deserves to be elected.

He later went on to Watford Peace Hospice, Peace Drive.