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Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I support the amendments and agree with noble Lords who said that parenting was probably the most important job that we would ever do. Unfortunately, none of us ever does it right. Even those of us, like myself, who were set a good example of how to do it by our parents, look back on the way in which we brought up our children and know that we made mistakes. I had a relatively privileged background and was set an excellent example, but I made mistakes. How much more important is it that we help young people who have not been set such a good example by their parents to learn how to avoid replicating problems in every generation?
We know that, like problems such as sexual or physical abuse, bad parenting replicates itself in every generation. Efforts to ensure that young people are prepared for the difficulties of parenting and are armed with strategies to help them to bring up their children well represent a good investment. I look forward to hearing the Minister tell us how it will be done. I cannot believe that she will not tell us, in some form or other, that the opportunity offered by the citizenship curriculum and by the possible development of the personal and social education curriculum will not be grasped. We know that good parenting is important, and we must not replicate the problems.
Lord Quirk: My Lords, I support what was said by my noble friends Lord Northbourne and Lady Howe of Idlicote and by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I have not come across it in prisons, but in young offenders institutions. A high proportion—about 60 per cent—of people in young offenders institutions have had a bad domestic experience. Some of them have talked to me about their confusion and about how they had never learnt how better to carry out the job of parenting. How would they, as 16 and 17 year-olds, learn to do it when they got out?
I support the spirit of the amendment. However, the face of the Bill is not the right place in which to realise the aim of the amendment. It would be better to change the DfES document that defines citizenship to extend it beyond the workplace to that highly important area, the home.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I come at this from a slightly different angle. It is impossible ever to argue against the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. His concern about these matters is second to none, and we all want to think that we could, by some means, achieve what the noble Lord wants to achieve.
I shall repeat a point that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and I have made many times. There are many children—a growing number—for whom school is the only anchor in their life. Home is not an anchor, and their domestic situation is often chaotic. There is a problem. As a Home Office Minister, I met young
people in probation centres or—worse—prison cells and could see the opportunities that they had lost so early in their life. I can remember at least one White Paper that identified all the signs, from disruption of classes by small children through to pupils dropping out of secondary school and standing around on street corners, getting involved in petty crime and, then, more serious crime. At the time, it was called the classroom-to-the-prison-cell syndrome, and it was common.I am concerned at the way in which the curriculum works. Once a subject has been declared to be either a core subject or a foundation subject, civil servants or others are set to work to determine programmes of study, taking a view about what must be taught and what must be included. They will have something to say about the methodology and more to say about assessment and examination. That is where there is a difficulty.
There are strong feelings about whether teachers should be judgmental about lifestyles. Some people ask whether we should expect teachers to preach about desirable forms of behaviour and about right and wrong. I have some fairly old-fashioned views about that, and I have been shot down in flames in the Chamber many times for being rather narrow and prissy about such things. However, to say that a particular approach shall be the way for all children in all schools and that teachers will teach such programmes of study would be to create a practical problem of delivery. What will be the state's view—for we are talking about state education—of family life and the responsibilities of parenting? I do not know the answer to that.
The noble Lord, Lord Quirk, said that the Bill was, perhaps, the wrong place for the change. If that is so, it might be that the work could be left to a combination of voluntary bodies. In the prisons, there are some wonderful organisations—the Society of Voluntary Associates is one— that work to bring order to the chaos in people's lives.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Peston, I am concerned about citizenship, for many of the reasons for which I am concerned about family responsibilities and parenting. I have no concerns about the objective, but I have real concerns about practical deliverability.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I agree with, I think, every noble Lord who has spoken. The most important job that one does in life is being a parent. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that we do it knowing that we will make mistakes. Indeed, our children will remind us of those mistakes—frequently, in my experience. It is an important area.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, that our children grow up in a complicated world. It seems to me that it becomes more complicated every year, which may be a sign of my age. All noble Lords recognise the importance of ensuring that we offer our young people the opportunity to learn as much as they can about their responsibilities.
Many children get their knowledge and information from watching their parents, and they will do well by that, whatever mistakes they may continue to make.I say to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in particular, that there are many ways and many opportunities to talk to people about parenting. I understand and agree with the focus on our young people, but I think that it is important that, wherever we can, we work with people of all ages to improve and enhance their parenting abilities. I pay tribute to the noble Lord for the work that he does. It is also a fundamental part of the Sure Start programme, which helps parents-to-be to become better parents and supports, in particular, those who live in disadvantaged areas, not because they are worse parents, but because they face more difficulties. Parenting orders are useful when children are out of control and parents need guidance and support. We are dealing with many areas of life, about which we are of one mind. We want people to be good parents, whatever definition of "good" we use, and we want to support them.
I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, about the 2.5 kilograms of material that we sent to him, and for the 2.5 tonnes that we sent to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. However, it is important to ensure that we provide as much information as possible and that everyone knows how much there is.
I take issue with one thing that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, said about the role of the voluntary sector. I am a huge fan of the voluntary sector's work in many areas—as, I know, are the noble Lord, the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, and other noble Lords. The voluntary sector plays a crucial role in providing material to many different organisations and institutions, including schools. We should credit it for the work that it does. We as a department—I am sure that this applied to the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, during her time at the department—support organisations that can provide information to schools, as well as doing it ourselves. We are not always the best people to do that. It is important to make that clear.
I shall take the two amendments together. It is important that we give pupils opportunities to learn about responsibilities, whether moral, social, parental or as citizens. That is central to citizenship education at key stages 3 and 4. We set out the statutory requirements for the subject and the programme for study, which is based on the order that we laid on 23rd June 2000, will ensure that from September, pupils will learn about the rights and responsibilities that underpin society. They build on current provision for key stages 1, 2 and 3, so that pupils can consolidate their learning.
As at key stage 3, pupils at key stage 4 will continue to learn about responsibility, which includes parental responsibility, as a tangible, everyday concept. That will complement the framework for personal, social and health education. Perhaps I may give your Lordships some examples of that provision. It provides for pupils to be taught at key stage 2 about the different types of relationships, including marriage and those between friends and families, and to develop
the skills to be effective in relationships. At key stage 3, it teaches about the roles and feelings of parents and carers and the value of family life, and at key stage 4 about the nature and importance of marriage for family life and bringing up children, as well as the role and responsibilities of a parent, the qualities of good parenting and its value to family life.The citizenship programme encourages teaching through discussion of issues of national relevance—such as teenage pregnancy—in greater depth, and learning about individual and parental responsibilities as well as public interest issues. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, that that understanding is vital if our young people are to fulfil their social responsibilities as adults and as parents.
As noble Lords will be aware, the role of the national curriculum is to set the broad framework that helps schools to provide a broad and balanced education for all pupils. The Government believe that preparing young people for the role and responsibilities of family life is just as important as preparing them for civic responsibility in the workplace or the wider community. We should not, however, expect schools to usurp parental responsibility in the home. Parents are for most children the principal providers of guidance about parenting and family life.
So we believe that the programmes of study for citizenship at key stages 3 and 4 are the right places to define the scope of teaching. Noble Lords may want to note a specific example in the schemes of work sent to all secondary schools in which, while exploring the concept of rights and responsibilities, pupils are encouraged to identify what kinds of roles they will have—for example, a family member or community member—and what rights, responsibilities and skills will be useful to them as they take on those roles.
We want schools to have the freedom to explore with young people a broad range of issues about which we would all want them to behave responsibly as adults. Alongside the PSHE framework, pupils are already being taught about the opportunities and responsibilities of parenthood and family life. We attach great importance to that, and to ensuring that at every other opportunity we can work with young people—and older people—for whom parenting issues are crucial. That is why there is provision for schools within citizenship to be able to teach about social and moral responsibility. We shall continue to monitor what is happening.
I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for raising the issue. If nothing else, it has made me consider and reflect as the Minister responsible for those programmes. I undertake to endeavour to consider those issues during the coming months and to talk further with the noble Lord. No doubt we shall have the opportunity further to explore the issue. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord is reassured and will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister. Perhaps I may say to the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, that when we have time, I shall have to give her a little education about the nature of parenting courses. It is simply an illusion to think that a well designed parenting course lays down values; it is about discussing values. It lays down facts. For example, a child would probably be taught as a fact that a baby that is constantly hit develops certain characteristics that make it violent. That is a scientific fact. But when it comes to what we do about that and what people want to do about that, young people are encouraged to work out and discuss their solutions, which are often extremely intelligent and sensible. As I said, it is not about trying to dictate a perfect way of parenting because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, no such thing exists.
Turning to the Minister, I thank her very much for such encouraging and helpful remarks. But when I read the framework, it did not read like that. It simply did not say that. I wonder whether the noble Baroness could arrange for someone to show me where she finds what she described in the literature, because it sounded great. But that is not what I read in the statutory framework.
I agree that voluntary bodies have an extremely important role to play. I further agree that it is extremely important to address those issues at all ages. But the long and short of it is that school is the only time when we have the children there, except possibly in the ante-natal clinic. It must be right to make use of that opportunity to begin to encourage them to think about those issues. For the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 81 [Curriculum requirements for fourth key stage]:
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