---

Lord Lucas: Although I come from the same side of the street as the noble Lord, Lord Peston, in being one of the irreligious, I do not think that he is going in the right direction with these amendments. I do not know of a serious faith which does not involve believing something that looks from my point of view totally ridiculous. It seems to be a characteristic of all faiths. Although creationism is particularly banana-brained in that it implies a God who has lied in every living thing and in the air, water and rocks beneath us and only told the truth in a book—which I find a pretty strange God—I do not think that this is something we should worry about too much. If it affected the way the curriculum was taught and the way a school was being properly conducted, it would be the kind of thing which Ofsted ought to pick up. If Ofsted thinks that something is going wrong in that regard, that ought to be taken seriously. However, I believe that we are well enough guarded by Ofsted which may have missed this point once but has now been put on guard against these things. It is a matter it will have to watch if we expand the range of religions which have schools and it is something we shall have to watch generally. However, I think that that is sufficient.

In particular, I do not think that we should go down the roads proposed by the amendments. I am enormously in favour of broadening out curriculum subjects, of merging them or doing things in different ways and not teaching in little compartments which so restrict us and do not allow the discussion of history in the context of science or science in the context of history, as if the two were separate things at such a basic level as GCSE. I should like to see much fuzzier boundaries between subjects, if one could find a way of introducing them and teaching effectively. If you have a religious school—there are many religious people who want religious schools and I have no objection at all to them having them—everything in that school will be permeated by the religion concerned. I cannot think of a single subject which would not be touched by a religion, even one that is as familiar to me as Catholicism. Certainly, what is true for that surely must be true for most religions. I do not

2 May 2002 : Column 924

think that you can separate out religious feeling from other subjects. You can do so possibly as regards mathematics but not as regards any other subject.

I do not think that the noble Lord can claim that economics is safe from religion. I regard Marxism as a religion and that has exerted plenty of influence on economics. I do not think that we should seek to draw these boundaries or seek to exclude religion or philosophy from application to any subject where they have a bearing.

Lord Roberts of Conwy: Would my noble friend care to comment on the fact that the individual pupil will also bring something to the teaching that he receives? It is very possible, say, with history, to take a purely religious line almost throughout. Similarly, the pupil can bring his own ethics, morals and home background to bear through his religion on all the other subjects that we have talked about.

10.45 p.m.

Lord Lucas: I entirely agree. Most of us develop a healthy scepticism for the philosophic element of what we are taught in school and we accumulate our own philosophies from a variety of sources. I have left behind many of the things that my teachers would have liked to inculcate into me, and I imagine that many other Members of the Committee have done so, too.

This is a serious subject but I do not believe that the amendments are the right way to approach it. I hope that we shall later return to the question of the way in which religion in schools should relate to the state. To say that religion should not be part of the curriculum or permeate all subjects is to misunderstand what we are as human beings, which is essentially philosophic beings who bring our beliefs into every aspect of what we do and study.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I am beginning to feel rather sorry for the noble Lord, Lord Peston, but I am not going to provide him with any succour by saying that I agree with him.

The amendments are unworkable and I fundamentally do not agree with their approach. I could not understand Amendment No. 35 when I read it; I just put two exclamation marks beside it and waited to see what he said. Perhaps we should try following the logic of his proposal. The theories of Keynes would have been regarded as heresy and would never have been taught because they would have been regarded as being extraneous to the economics curriculum by many economists in the 1930s. The teachings of many people at any moment in time—Galileo and Darwin are two examples—were regarded as being totally heretical to the mainstream school of thought at that time. Knowledge progresses, as we know perfectly well, by debating such matters.

I have no sympathy with the proposal. Amendment No. 35 is totally illiberal. On Amendment No. 36, I agree with all those who said that our whole culture is infiltrated to a very great degree. One cannot put these matters into little boxes. As my noble friend Lady

2 May 2002 : Column 925

Walmsley said, in teaching biology one has to approach and discuss various points of ethics. That is true of many other areas. I am sorry but I simply do not agree with the amendments.

Lord Davies of Oldham: It is my misfortune this evening to have been involved, first, with a small technical series of amendments, in relation to which I ran into untold trouble, and now with the most fundamental debate that could ever take place in the House on education. I have arrived equipped with a contribution that would last for an hour and a half but, in deference to the lateness of the hour, to which my noble friend has drawn attention, I will truncate it to three or four minutes.

I was unable to respond to my noble friend's earlier plea that his debate should be arranged for a more convenient time because, first, an arrangement had been arrived at through the usual channels before he stood up. I am the last person, as I am sure he will agree, to break agreements between the usual channels.

Secondly, my noble friend will recall that it was Hegel who said that the owl of Minerva takes flight at night. If we are going to have a philosophical and religious debate, we should have it quite late in the evening. Unfortunately, we cannot go beyond 11 p.m. so we shall have a rather more truncated debate than he might like.

A third factor, to which Members of the Committee have referred, is involved; that is, that this debate is taking place within the framework of this piece of legislation and has been raised through amendments to the legislation. I am afraid that my noble friend is bound by the rules of the game. As and when those amendments come up, that is when they will be debated.

It is also the case that, although many of us would like to indulge in substantial debate on the depth of these issues, on which he made a most eloquent plea, we are concerned with what the amendments would do to the Bill. I am bound therefore to restrict my remarks somewhat to the technicalities in that regard. However, I do so gladly and against the background that there have been outstanding contributions from all Members of the Committee who have spoken in this debate. I know that the noble Lord is in a minority but he put his case with the greatest eloquence. That is why he provoked everyone to respond to him. I have strained to match his eloquence and believe that in every case I have succeeded in doing so and have answered many of the issues that he raised.

I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, for defining the Emmanuel position. I have substantial information on that, but the noble Lord indicated that the college teaches science in a manner and to a level which is acceptable to Ofsted, to inspectors and to the examination board which examines the students. Therefore, I believe that he can rest assured on that point.

2 May 2002 : Column 926

With regard to the more general issue of how prescriptive we could be about particular subjects, I believe that everyone who has spoken in the debate—in particular, the right reverend Prelate—has identified how difficult that matter is. There is no doubt about it; it is not only a question that certain themes embrace more than one academic subject but that we are only too happy to see certain academic subjects broadened out and taken in conjunction with other issues. To take the most obvious example, citizenship has recently been introduced into the curriculum. We should certainly never be able to discuss citizenship unless we did so in the context of religion as well; otherwise, how would we spread the concept of understanding other faiths and reach the degree of tolerance that we should like to see developed in our society, which is a crucial part of citizenship?

Likewise, as Members on all sides of the Committee have indicated, there are a number of ways in which subjects interlink and inform each other so as to produce genuine education and enlightenment for students. Therefore, in those terms, I believe that we have had a most useful theoretical debate. My only comment to my noble friend is that he is a skilled parliamentarian. He knows that there are other ways in which these issues can be debated at great length, even in the afternoon. It is for him to employ that strategy if he so wishes.

However, this evening we are discussing his amendments. In addition to the reservations that have been expressed about the amendments on all sides of the Chamber, perhaps I may make the most obvious point. If the amendments were carried, we should be placing on schools which had received earned autonomy a restriction greater than that placed on all other schools. I am sure that my noble friend does not intend that. I believe that he is seeking to air the issue, and he does so within this framework. But the logic of the amendment would be that schools which reached the position of earned autonomy would find themselves at a level of restriction which they would not be under if they had not earned that autonomy. Surely that would be a great contradiction in terms.

I recognise the value of my noble friend's contribution this evening. I believe that we have all enjoyed the debate. I know that I am being dreadfully short in this all-too-truncated reply, but perhaps I may assure him that I have used one-eighth of the notes that I have available. There may be another occasion on which he can explore these matters, and I am sure that he will take full advantage of that. However, this evening I hope that he will withdraw the amendment.

---