Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I am no expert on education but, as both my parents were teachers and as I have spent many years as a school governor, I feel that I must speak in this debate on two areas about which I feel passionately. Unfortunately for your Lordships, they are the same areas that the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, has just addressed but I shall try to express them somewhat differently. I am extremely worried about Clause 7, which says that a local authority may advertise for persons or organisations to establish a new school. I find that extraordinary, especially as my colleagues in the other place failed to get any response in Committee from the Government on what sort of person or organisation with money should be allowed to do that. My colleagues were told that private companies could not set up schools but, if they formed a charitable trust, they could. McDonald’s was joked about, but it would be interesting to see how the great British public would react if they had to choose between sending their child to McDonald’s School or the Nike Academy. That could happen. Even more worrying from my point of view—we have heard this from several noble Lords already, and I emphasise that it is my personal opinion—is the growing number of faith schools of all faiths in this country. In fact, many faiths are becoming an industry. Do the Government never look to the future for our grandchildren? Do they never learn from the past? We have already heard about Northern Ireland. Can the Government not see the danger of growing numbers of Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Hindu schools mushrooming all over the country, especially with the current foreign policy of the Prime Minister? So far, the Government have been very unconcerned about the Vardy Foundation schools teaching creationism. Certainly, when I questioned the Prime Minister some years ago about those schools, he told me more or less that exam results were what mattered. Apparently, scientific theory and truth could be disregarded. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Pilkington, who is not in his place, on making some very fine and useful comments about science education in this country. Creeping doctrines such as creationism are dangerous if we are to maintain a scientific base for our children. Do not let me hear the word ““mandate”” in this debate. I have not heard it yet but the Minister might be tempted later on. The Government have no mandate for their manifesto—only 35 per cent of the people who voted in the previous election voted for their programme. That was no mandate; that was an insult. The other point that I wish to make, like the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, concerns personal and social health education, and sex education in particular. I have much experience of this as I practised long in a profession that dealt with young people and young women in particular. Unlike religious education, this is based on biological facts, which all children have a right to know—I emphasise ““right””. It also involves learning about how our bodies work in the most intimate and important human activity and the way in which we form relationships and keep healthy in body and mind. Currently, the biological facts of human reproduction are included in the science curriculum, but Ofsted has recently in a very good report described the provision of wider PSHE as very patchy, with some schools not doing it at all. I find that very worrying, if not a disgrace in a modern society in the 21st century. Sex is everywhere in our society. Sexual images advertise everything. Television and cinema give the impression that everyone does it on nodding acquaintance everywhere. I was going to say ““at the drop of a knicker””, but I crossed it out; I have now put it back in again. I am beginning to sound like my mother. Whoever saw a TV character stop to discuss safe sex or put on a condom, let alone question whether it was a good idea anyway? I have never seen that. Young people watch all this stuff and see it as the norm and they dare not refuse. They have to be given the right education to be able to negotiate and have strength in their position. There are still young women out there thinking that they will not get pregnant the first time, or if they do it standing up. That is still a common fallacy. They do not understand either that unprotected sex may lead to serious disease and/or infertility, as well as an unplanned pregnancy. I give the Government credit as they have worried about this issue, but we still have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe, despite Government efforts. There are simply not enough clinics, doctors or nurses to spread the word, and most young people do not come to them anyway unless they are in trouble. School nurses are disappearing rapidly. Therefore, with no school nurses and no medical facilities, PSHE is vital to our children’s behaviour to ensure that they have the confidence to choose for themselves when they become sexually active and how they can keep themselves healthy and safe. Amendments will be tabled to make good-quality PSHE a statutory foundation subject at all stages of the curriculum, and I beg noble Lords to support those amendments.