My Lords, I believe that it was the noble Lord, Lord Dear, who said that this is something of knife-edge issue, and I sympathise with that observation. I hope that I will not embarrass her, but I find myself in considerable agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, and I certainly have a lot of sympathy for her whole approach to this subject. However, I have one deeply held anxiety which I would like to express very briefly in the hope that it will be allayed by the response of my noble friend the Minister.
It is not the objectivity of teaching that worries me. It is not the way that teachers will interpret or rehearse the law before their pupils or their classes that is my concern. On the whole, I have enormous respect for the teaching profession, having been associated with it for some time, and I think that teachers will do their job admirably. That is not my worry. My worry lies in
what I think the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, said, and certainly others have mentioned; namely, the difference between what I would call the objective teaching or factual teaching, as the noble Lord, Lord Alli, said, and promotion. That is the knife edge. It is done so easily. It is done by emphasis and by inference. We know through our respective interests how easy it is, almost subliminally, to encourage a viewpoint that is held firmly by the particular promoter of that view. It is done carefully and sometimes not quite so carefully. This is my worry and I hope my noble friend will be able to reply.
I have seen, as other noble Lords have doubtless also seen—there is nothing peculiar about me, there is no reason why I alone should have seen this—material in the public domain which is promotional material advertising the good things about same-sex relationships. I have heard it said—I give no particular credence to this; it is hearsay—that teachers sometimes encourage pupils in their class to experiment, to find out in terms of sexual relationships, “what makes you happy”. This is what worries me. There is an undercurrent there of crusading on behalf of same-sex relationships which I think has no place in a school. I accept teaching factually; I do not accept promotion or promotional material.