Education Bill

My Lords, we need not just information, but a little guidance as this Committee stage could go on and on. I think that we all accept that. The problem with my noble friend’s comment just now is that, alas, as we heard earlier, one or two people have personal experiences of finding the whole business of sitting outside an assembly or religious occurrence in a school very disturbing. This is something that we all need to take into account. This issue has gone on and on. I was remembering, as the noble Lord, Lord Peston, was on his feet, having these arguments in the Communications Committee. However, we managed eventually to come to a satisfactory conclusion and we moved on. I declare an interest as a newly appointed vice-president of WATCH. As all of you will know, my interest is likely to be in seeing more women priests and women bishops around the place—that is what WATCH stands for. There is a hugely important role for assemblies, whatever you call them. Think of the BBC and the way it puts over all the different religions and none. That is what we need to see not least because—this is my one point that I will make and then sit down—it is crucial that we all learn about all religions and none, and that we all realise how wide a grouping of religions there have been and still are in this world. Somehow they have all got to learn to live with one another. The more that we can educate children to understand other people’s points of view and other people’s ways of sorting things out or ““reification””—a word which I must use as I have found it fascinating ever since going, rather late, to study sociology at LSE; I thought that religion would not come in at all there, but not a bit of it—which means explaining that part outside of yourself which you cannot explain. So it is even necessary in social science. We need such things not least to try to reduce the number of wars as a result of misunderstandings between races and between religions. We are changing, but do we really want to go this far to make something completely different, with all the unintended consequences which the right reverend Prelate has mentioned and which my noble friend mentioned just now? There are a lot of unintended consequences from changing the law.