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Baroness Walmsley: I thank the Minister for her reply. In laying out the flexibilities which schools already have in terms of pay and conditions, she explained better than I why we do not need the provisions about pay and conditions in Clause 6. She has great confidence in the ability of governing bodies to do the right thing in this respect. Of course, governing bodies are loyal to their particular schools, but they have no responsibility for all the schools around them. By including the appropriate teaching unions and the local authorities in the negotiations we could avoid the situation in which there was a negative impact on other schools surrounding the few which would attract the additional powers when they have earned autonomy. Perhaps we can return to that matter at Report stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Peston moved Amendment No. 35:
- Page 4, line 33, at end insert—
The noble Lord said: In speaking to Amendments Nos. 35 and 36, I feel obliged to apologise to the Committee. I regard the two amendments as absolutely fundamental to the Bill and to our system of education. I regard it as absolutely absurd that we are debating such amendments at 10.15 p.m. The sooner we abandon the arcane procedures of your Lordships' House and adopt the suggestions which my noble and learned friend the Leader of the House will put forward to us soon, so that on a Thursday we will stop at seven o'clock and on any other day we will stop at ten o'clock, the better. This House will become more efficient and will be able to deal with matters of this kind in a much more appropriate way.
Back-Benchers on this side of the House have no power in that regard. We must debate amendments when they arise and therefore I see no way in which I can avoid raising such matters. Furthermore, I regret to say that I can see no way of doing it briefly. So unless my noble friend who is the Whip on the Front Bench would care to move that we adjourn, I shall now proceed. I do not believe that he is going to adjourn the Committee.
Both of the amendments take us into the area of religious schools. They also take us into the area of the curriculum and they take us to fundamental questions which need answers. I have not yet heard those answers. What is the precise contribution that religious schools make to education—I shall concentrate on education rather than religion—that causes us to have them at all, to wish to expand their number and, if I may put it this way, to wish to extend them to additional religions? That is one question.
The second question, which is not unrelated to the first, is: what is the connection between what I would call the religious ethos of a school and the national curriculum? I assume we would agree that, in some cases, there is no connection. Young people are taught that the square root of two is an irrational number and I cannot see how postulating one or other religion or deity could throw any light on that question. Thus if we are discussing the serious mathematics being taught in school, then the problem does not arise. I assume that it would also not arise in theoretical physics and, in so far as my own subject is taught in schools, that it could not possibly arise in the teaching of economics.
However, the question is: where can it arise? At this point I would add: if it cannot arise anywhere, why do religious schools exist anyway? Those are the kinds of questions that are before us and on which we must reflect.
I turn now to the question of where religious ethos might arise. The obvious subject to start with is history. Before I move on to religion, I shall cite another example. Any noble Lord who has seen an American school history textbook will know that the account of the American Revolution or the War of Independence in that textbook will bear no resemblance to what I was taught at school. Anyone reading such a book would wonder at what an extraordinarily biased view of history the Americans are being taught. A fortiori, if one reads the chapter on the battle of Waterloo in a French history textbook, you have to be incredibly clever to discover that they lost and we won. Indeed, if you miss the last sentence, then you will not discover it at all.
I am perfectly well aware that in the subject of history then—what is the right word?—bias or point or view will have an impact. We should have no difficulty with that. Therefore, if I were in a Catholic school, it would not surprise me if the way in which the Reformation is taught had certain nuances which would be a little different from those I would encounter if I were in a Protestant school or if I were not in a religious school at all. Again, I should say that that does not remotely trouble me. What would trouble me would be if there were no such nuances. That is not what I am about.
Perhaps I may turn to areas where, again, I would not expect there to be any difference. In English literature, if the school play was "The Merchant of Venice", I would hope that the play would be dealt with in the same way in a Jewish school, in a Muslim school, in a Protestant school and in a school that was not religious at all. Equally, given his views on religion, if Shelley's poetry was being discussed in English literature classes, I would hope that no religious school would make any attempt to undermine the beauty of that poet's work by saying, "Well, it can't be very good because of his views". Again, I hope that that would not happen.
Then I have to ask, if such things would not happen, then where does the religious impact come from? That takes me on to what started me on the subject in the debate on Second Reading; namely, the fact that there appear to be people who not only believe in what is called Creationism, but who actually think that it would be appropriate to introduce it into schools in the relevant subject, biology. I did not know that such people still existed in our country. I found that impossible to believe. I know that there are some flat earthers around; but when I inquired as to whether there were some flat earthers in our schools, I was not able to find a single case of anyone teaching physics on a flat earth basis.
The question I come to is this. For anyone who knows anything about biology—unfortunately, too few do—matters such as evolution and natural selection are not only a part of biology but permeate the whole of it. If a teacher were to include in the curriculum matters of a creationist kind, that would be immensely damaging. More to the point, who is there to protect the children against such an event? In the Emmanuel school case, Ofsted was not there to protect anyone. Indeed, Ofsted did not seem to notice it and gave the relevant school a good assessment.
A similar question arises in one of the most fascinating topics in the history of science—that is, the age of the universe. An attempt was made to show on the basis of the Old Testament that the earth was 4,040 years old. Indeed, an attempt was made to date the exact day and time that the world was created. It shows the incredible ingenuity of the human mind that one can do that kind of work. I find it marvellous.
Occasionally I come across people who, in the face of the fact that the world is billions of years old and, on the basis of all that we know about physics—the world will come to an end unless all the theories of entropies, thermodynamics and so on are wrong—say, "There is no problem here. The whole of the previous history was invented at the same time as the world was created 4,040 years ago and somehow there will be a new creation in several million years' time".
But those are substantive questions. My concern is to ask what goes on in these schools and what it is that they do. The schools that I know about do not behave in such a way. No school that I have come across so far—except for the Emmanuel school case—would dream of allowing such matters into the sciences, the arts and so on.
My worry is twofold. First, can I believe that that will be the case in the future, especially with the great expansion of what appears to be acceptable or called a religion? Secondly, will not existing schools, if the danger arises, also feel that they can safely go in that direction? I have no difficulty with people who have faith which is separate from science—it is a classic problem in philosophy—but I am always puzzled by the fact that for a lot of people who have faith, faith does not seem to be enough. The history of theology and philosophy shows that, ultimately, believers want more. They are not content to say, "I have faith in the existence of a deity", or, "I have faith in that".
But these are side issues. The main issue is that the Government have said three things. First, they have said that they rather like religious schools; secondly, they have said that they would like to have more religious schools; and, thirdly, they have said that we have got to include more religions in the group that can have religious schools.
The reason I raise these matters, at twenty-five past ten at night, is to ask the simple question: how do we protect the national curriculum? How do we protect the great scientific traditions of our country and the great humanities traditions of our country from the encroachment of those who may not respect them and who would allow religious matters—which have their place—to cross over into these areas?
I repeat my point that I am not happy that I am raising these matters in an empty Chamber at a late hour. But, as this is when the amendments have come before the Committee, I have no choice. I have raised the matter, and I am interested to hear the response of one or two other Members of the Committee whom I hope I have persuaded to take part in the debate. I beg to move.
"( ) No regulations with regard to exemption from any curriculum provision should enable material to be introduced which is extraneous to any subject, as normally understood."
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