Education and Inspections Bill

I have an amendment in this group and I think it is time that I was allowed to speak to it. I have very much enjoyed hearing from those Members who do not have amendments in this group. I believe this debate has demonstrated your Lordships' House at its best. It seems a pity that we have been forced to have such a mixed group of amendments and that we have to talk to them altogether. In some ways, the discussion has been broken up a little because of that. Before speaking to my amendments, I should make a few brief comments, from a personal point of view, about some of the comments that have been made by other Members. I do not often find myself in total agreement with the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, nor with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, but I agree with both of them when they speak of intolerance and exclusivity being characteristics that we should not encourage in our schools. Although I have enormous sympathy with the concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and by my noble friend Lady Tonge and others who supported the first amendment in the group, I am concerned about the idea of an absolute ban on the expansion of any more Church schools. I am attracted by what my noble friend Lady Tonge hinted at in her excellent speech; that there is an alternative to the expansion of more Church schools and the right of Muslim groups to have their own schools. That is epitomised by the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, which is a compromise. People of faith make up a large percentage of the community in this country and they have a right to have an involvement in education. However, I would prefer that that involvement happened as part of maintained community nonsecular schools. If they really do not want to do that, I believe they have a right to have something else. The noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, suggested a compromise which contained the ““q”” word—quota—which I know many noble Lords do not like, but I can give the Committee an example where I have seen it working rather well. Last summer, I went to the small country of Fiji and had a chat with the Minister of Education there. Fiji does two things very well. One is playing rugby, which is why I was there. The other is that it has integrated the ethnic Fijian and Indian communities extremely well in its schools. I asked the Minister what was the secret and she said, ““Money””. The state says that if you do not integrate, you do not get the money. That is a strong indication that we should look at something along the lines of what the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, suggested. I share the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, about Amendment No. 129. I also share the concerns of my noble friend Lord Taverne and his preference for religion to be taught in the home or a place of worship rather than in a maintained school, but that is an aside. The main reason for rising is to speak to my Amendment No. 217A, which would allow pupils aged 16 and over to choose to exclude themselves from acts of collective worship rather than have to rely on their parents to do it for them, as now. The Committee may have heard that the Joint Committee on Human Rights is minded to look at this amendment with a view to giving its opinion. However, leading human rights lawyers have already given their opinions and they believe that there is no justification for forcing young people to take part in a religious service with which they do not agree. Freedom of worship, or non-worship in this case, is a basic part of our rights as citizens of a free country, so I would be surprised if the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Minister did not agree with us. Of course, there is a case for a slightly different amendment—one that draws a line at the point at which a young person becomes competent to make a decision for himself, but that may differ depending on the maturity of the individual. That would be hard to decide without a professional assessment of the individual, their maturity and their competence to decide, which is why we have laid our relatively simple amendment. It would be strange for a young person to be old enough to work, pay taxes, manage his own money, get married, have children, fight for his country and possibly even vote but not be competent to absent himself from an act of collective worship. There have been some high profile cases recently where young people have taken the matter into their own hands. This week's Times Educational Supplement has a story on its front page about some schools trying to impose their religious values on young people. Some 100 pupils signed a petition protesting at the decision to invite a pro-life campaigner to lecture in a school where 17 young people were excluded for a day after they refused to go to Mass and then had to undergo a re-entry interview. Those practices are self-defeating. You cannot impose a religion on anyone and efforts to do so will probably have the opposite effect. If we want young people to take responsibility and act maturely, surely we should respect their rights to decide for themselves on a matter such as this. I apologise to the Committee that my amendment is not about the same issue as the one which has been debated so fascinatingly this evening, but because we have these enormous non-homogeneous groups of amendments, this sort of thing comes up. I really felt that it was time that I spoke to my amendment in this group, and I hope for a positive response from the Minister.