My Lords, I say in a spirit of courtesy that I rather resent the reference to this side of the Chamber, because this debate is not whipped. What I will say is based on my experience as a mother and as someone, obviously, who went to school. For 10 years I chaired the education committee in Lancashire, with a bevy of bishops—perhaps “beneficence” would be a more appropriate word—because Lancashire had, and I think still has, the largest number of faith schools. I think that this is the last week that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool will be in your Lordships’ House. I would like to put it on record that he has contributed very wisely to our debates.
My experience of the education system is that of a parent and an unqualified teacher. I have to say, on the basis of my experience, that the current Government’s use of unqualified teachers serves children ill. I will address this issue and concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Dear. We tangle with the content of the curriculum and what teachers ought to say and do at our peril. I recollect—this may surprise some noble Lords opposite—my faith in the late Lord Joseph, who, in the circumstance of vitriolic debates about whether teachers were telling young people that they ought to support CND back in the 1980s, said that the role of a teacher could be to say that they supported CND or not, but that as a professional they ought also to say that other teachers, parents and people in the community held different views. To my amazement—I admit prejudice prior to his appointment—I found that Lord Joseph was interested in genuine educational debate and discussion among young people as they grew up. Noble Lords would do well to remember his advice that young people need to know about a diversity of views as they grow into young adults.
Nobody wishes to see the promotion of a particular lifestyle, moral view, political view or religious view. Teachers have to teach children who are growing up in a very diverse culture. It is totally different from my childhood, when there was not a diverse culture in most communities. Most diversity was hidden.
I would like to relate the story of a superb head teacher in a Lancashire church school, who came to me at the time of the introduction of Section 28. This head teacher was a devout, practising Anglican. By chance, she was actually a very devout Conservative Party member, if one can be such a thing. She asked to see me about Section 28. I thought she would come in and say, “You’ve got to support this, this is important.” What she told me was a story. It took place in that small church school in a village in Lancashire, where she was head teacher. She asked the children to draw a picture of their Christmas Day morning. She said to me, “Josie, one little girl drew a picture of herself in bed with two women”. She said to the little girl, “Who are they?”, and the little girl said, “My two mummies. I don’t have a daddy, I have two mummies.”
The head teacher said to me that her professional job, given all her views and her devout Christian belief, was to support the family in which this child lived and ensure the child was never in any way victimised for the circumstances of her family life. So she had to explain to other children, “Some people live like this”. I explained that story to Lord Joseph. He understood it because he knew that children grow up in families with very different views and very different circumstances.
To the noble Lord, Lord Dear, I say that it is not a question of endorsing but of recognising. Children are growing up in a diversity of families. They may grow up with a mother and a father who are married within a religious faith. Their uncles and aunts and other people they know, other people in the community such as family friends, will have different patterns of life, different beliefs and different relationships. We have to make sure that teachers are given the freedom and responsibility to respond to the young people in their care.
A long way back I was accused by a then Member of Parliament in Lancashire of presiding over a situation in which teachers were indoctrinating children into supporting a particular view. I refer back to the CND. I never actually got proof of the indoctrination, but I had wholehearted support across the political groups on Lancashire Country Council for ensuring that teachers were able to teach children to grow up in the real world that they lived in.
I may not like particular aspects of life. I am not awfully fond of rap, but that it is an age thing, not an artistic judgment. We have to stop preventing teachers teaching children about the world in which they are growing up. Teachers should not endorse views or indoctrinate children but recognise that the world is real and it is out there. That is why I give the Government my wholehearted support. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Dear—
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