My Lords, perhaps I may put in my 10 cents-worth on this. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alli, that the teacher must teach what the law is. There is no doubt about it. I have the utmost sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, has said. As I have said previously, it is the duty of teachers to support the child, whatever type of relationship the parents with whom they are living
may have. I have happily granted adoption orders to same-sex couples. They are or can be excellent parents—as good as any other. I start from that basis.
However, I have a concern. It is really what the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, said about being a grandparent. I am a grandparent and my grandchildren ask awkward questions but the concern is about when the question is asked of a teacher. The teacher is there, trying very hard to give a neutral account of what the present law of marriage is. Then a child asks an awkward question and the teacher answers honestly. It could be a question such as, “What do you think about it, miss?”, and the teacher says, “I have to say that I am a member of the Church of England and my view is that I do not believe in same-sex marriage”. The child goes off and tells the mother, and the mother comes and complains to the school because a member of that family is in a same-sex relationship. That is what worries me. It is the perception; it is the interpretation. It is that which has gone beyond the ordinary, perfectly proper teaching of the teacher. It is for that reason that what the noble Lord, Lord Dear, is asking for is a necessary protection for teachers.
I do not support the noble Lord’s second amendment. I think that children should learn everything. When I was a judge, I remember the father of a Roman Catholic family, who was very devout, telling me that I should make an order that in the Anglican school to which he had sent his children they should not attend religious education because it was Anglican education, not Roman Catholic. I basically told him to get lost and that if he had chosen to send the child to that school it was right that the child should learn what the school was teaching. Children should be learning everything and they will then distinguish between matters.
However, the first of the two amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Dear, should not be dismissed out of hand. There is a problem here that has to be recognised.