The Archbishop of Canterbury has welcomed the announcement last week to scrap plans that would make it necessary for faith schools to take more children from other religions.

Education Secretary Alan Johnson faced criticism last week for his U-turn on his plans that would require all new faith-based schools to fulfil quotas of pupils from outside the respective faith.

Dr Rowan Williams defended faith schools in an interview for Radio 4's Sunday Programme, in which he said that concerns about the effect of faith schools on community cohesion were misplaced and insisted that they are not harmful to the cohesion of society.

He conceded, meanwhile, that the government had highlighted that there were in fact concerns over integration between faith groups "which faith schools have to play their part in resolving".

"I think it reflects the government taking faith schools seriously in their own terms while quite properly and very naturally saying, look, there are concerns about integration, which faith schools have to play their part in resolving," he said.

In the days following Johnson's climb-down on the faith schools quotas, Dr Williams also expressed his opposition to any legislation that would restrict the wearing of religious symbols.

He added that the need to set legal limits over the size and style of things such as crucifixes or veils would be a "path to madness".

Last week the Roman Catholic Church followed in the footsteps of the Church of England in saying that it would voluntarily admit 25 per cent of students to its schools who belonged to different religions or no religion at all as long as demand among Catholics had been met first.

The Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, the Rt Rev Vincent Nichols, also welcomed the change in heart from Johnson in a statement and that admissions would remain the prerogative of school governors while changes to the law would not affect Catholic children.