HUDDERSFIELD MP Barry Sheerman has clashed with a leading bishop over the future of a Huddersfield school.

The Labour man and the Bishop of Leeds, the Rt Rev Arthur Roche, have been in talks about All Saints Catholic College at Bradley Bar.

Mr Sheerman said: “It’s been very difficult to engage with him about education in our area.”

In May the MP arranged to meet Bishop Roche to discuss how All Saints would fit in with a major school building programme planned for Kirklees.

Mr Sheerman said: “A few days before we were due to meet – on the eve of the local elections – the bishop had a letter read out in every church in Kirklees and Calderdale accusing politicians of undermining Catholic education.

“I was rather disturbed and amazed. It’s a strange thing to do just before meeting an MP.

“We met and had a good and valuable discussion. But since then there has been very little progress.”

But Bishop Roche rejected the criticism.

He said: “I find it odd that Mr Sheerman finds me ‘difficult to engage with’ when both I and my education officers have been in continual discussion with Kirklees regarding Catholic education provision in the area.

“Perhaps his objection is to do with my responsibility as a bishop to protect the rights of Catholics under the 1944 Education Act, which allows us to have our own schools.

“As to his amazement that I wrote a letter to the Catholics in the area last May I am equally surprised that Mr Sheerman should question my right to freedom of speech.

“After all, democracy is not a matter of toeing the party line but of open-ness and respect for all those who have rights as citizens in a democratic system.”

Mr Sheerman – who chairs the influential House of Commons Education Select Committee – is also concerned about the Catholic church’s attitude to sex education.

He is worried by a report by the Bishop of Lancaster, Dr Patrick O’Donoghue, ordering Catholic schools in the North-West to teach children that contraception is wrong and that sex should only take place within marriage.

Mr Sheerman said: “We have one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the developed world. It would disturb me if a child went through education without an open discussion of contraception.”

The MP said Bishop O’Donoghue’s attitude was at odds with the view of other church leaders.

Mr Sheerman said: “Last year the Archbishop of Birmingham appeared before our committee and said that contraception would be discussed in Catholic schools in an open way.

“He told us that the view of the church would be part of that discussion but the students would be allowed to make their own decision.”

However, Bishop Roche denied the church was divided on sex education.

He said: “We teach according to our Catholic principles and values.

“The programme that we use in our schools in the Leeds Diocese has the backing of the Government and plainly does not contradict the sentiments of either the Bishop of Lancaster or those of the Archbishop of Birmingham.

“Perhaps a closer reading of the document would be beneficial to Mr Sheerman before making public statements that seem to be misinformed.”

Mr Sheerman would like the Archbishop of Birmingham and the bishops of Lancaster and Leeds to appear before his committee to discuss these issues.

Next Wednesday Schools Secretary Ed Balls will explain his plans for an increase in state-funded religious schools to the committee.

In September he promised that money would be made available for about 100 independent Muslim schools to move into the state education system if they chose to do so.

And he acknowledged there was a demand for more school places from Hindu and Sikh families, as well as children of Catholic immigrants from eastern Europe.

The Church of England said last year that it was aiming to open 100 new semi-independent, state-funded city academies in England.