My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for the important statement that he issued after Second Reading and to which he referred.
During the past few months, the Secretary of State, my right honourable friend Maria Miller, and I have enjoyed some very constructive, productive and valuable discussions with both the most reverend Primate and the right reverend Prelate and their officials on a range of matters. Something I valued greatly was having the opportunity to get to know Members on the Bishops’ Benches better than I had done up to that point. Our discussions included their concerns about religious freedom for faith schools, which the right reverend Prelate talked about in moving his amendment, and I am grateful to him for the very careful way that he did.
In responding to the right reverend Prelate and to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, I start by stressing that schools with a religious character provide an excellent education for their pupils, while reflecting their beliefs across the curriculum, including in sex and relationship education. We really value the work that faith schools do and I would like to make it clear that there is absolutely nothing in this Bill that affects the ability of faith schools to continue to do this in the future.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester has explained that there is a specific concern—echoed by other noble Lords who have contributed tonight—that without this amendment a potential conflict could arise between a school’s duty to teach its faith ethos and its responsibilities under Section 403 of the Education Act. I understand the importance of this issue and I can assure noble Lords that the Government have considered it very carefully. Noble Lords will have heard me say on many occasions during the passage of this Bill that we are considering this area, and we have done so with great care. However, we believe that this provision is unnecessary. Clearly, I need to reassure the House on why we have come to that view.
In schools of a religious character, teachers deal admirably with teaching about marriages that may not be recognised as such according to the tenets of the relevant faith—for example, marriages of divorcees or, for some religions, mixed-faith marriages. In order to take account of this distinction, they already interpret their duties under Section 403 of the Education Act
according to their religious tenets. Faith schools must take the guidance into account when developing their policy on sex and relationship education and, in doing so, can also take into account other matters, including in particular relevant religious tenets. This is already recognised by the current legal framework.
I will expand a little on this and I will respond specifically to the question put to me by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford. “Have regard to” means just that. Having regard to a provision does not mean that it must be followed assiduously should there be a good reason for not doing so. This was made clear in the decision of the Privy Council in Barber v Minister of the Environment in 1997. Faith schools must take the guidance into account when developing their policy on sex and relationship education and, in doing so, can also take into account other matters, including in particular relevant religious tenets. A relevant faith tenet is a perfectly sensible reason in this context and one that the current legal framework recognises.
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The right reverend Prelates the Bishop of Guilford and the Bishop of Exeter sought assurance that there is no legal conflict between a school’s trust deeds and its obligations in relation to the guidance. I can happily give that assurance. Faith schools must take into account the requirements placed on them by their trust deeds when determining their policy on sex and relationship education. The requirement on schools to have regard to the guidance ensures that they can take other relevant factors into account, including their trust deeds. They are required not to follow every element of the guidance but simply to have regard to it.
We are concerned that, as well as being unnecessary, the amendment could be unhelpful. As is noted in the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights following its scrutiny of this Bill, some are making the argument for clarification in this area as a way of protecting faith schools from being required to “promote or endorse” marriage of same-sex couples. We are clear that no school is under any duty to promote or endorse any particular view about marriage. I recognise what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester said about the ghosts of the past, but we have heard in our debates about the real concern that gay people still have when it seems that a duty to explain might equate to promoting gay marriage. That seems an argument against teachers being able to inform children in an appropriate way that we are not all the same.
My noble friend Lord Cormack talked about the parents who send their children to faith schools and the importance that they attach to their children being able to learn about the tenets of their faith at school. My noble friend Lady Byford made a similar point and stressed that that was the reason behind the decision to send children to faith schools. My noble friend Lord Cormack said that he hoped that we would be able to give some comfort to those who need it in the face of enormous social change, as I think he described it. I understand the point that my noble friends are making in this regard. As I hope they will remember, I acknowledged at Second Reading that we all deal with change at a different pace and it is perfectly reasonable for people to need some time to
adjust to social change, but I do not think that this amendment is the way to give people comfort in order to adjust to social change.
A point that I do not think has been made so far this evening is that some parents who send their children to faith schools are gay. We should not assume that all parents who send their children to faith schools are straight couples. That is the kind of sensitive issue that we are dealing with. I understand the strength of conviction and complete sincerity of the right reverend Prelate and his colleagues in bringing forward this amendment, but I am trying to explain how complex it is in how it gets interpreted and the effect that it has on what I think we are all trying to achieve: an accepting and tolerant society in which we all understand and respect one another.
The Government do not believe that there is a need to legislate on this matter, but I note and understand the desire for additional clarity to be provided to all schools and teachers. As I have mentioned several times over the past few weeks, we have secured the agreement of the Equality and Human Rights Commission to work with the Government to review the commission’s guidance and statutory codes of practice. Perhaps I have not been as clear as I need to be that among the codes of practice that it produces there is a specific code for schools and teachers, and this guidance is about the Equality Act 2010. The EHRC will review that guidance in light of this Bill becoming an Act, so new guidance from the EHRC will go out to schools specifically to help to ensure that there is clarity around the fact that belief that a marriage should only be between a man and a woman must be respected. That is something that we know people very much want and it is something that we are very much committed to providing.
The Department for Education will also work with relevant organisations that provide advice on teaching sex education, as well as the Catholic Education Service and Church of England Education Division, to ensure that those organisations’ advice to schools makes it clear that faith schools are able to explain relevant religious tenets when teaching about marriage.
Of course I recognise that my response will disappoint many noble Lords, not just the right reverend Prelates on the Bishops’ Bench. My noble friend Lady Byford referred to concessions and I am sorry that this is not an amendment that we can accept. We have made several amendments to the Bill and accepted concessions. Changing the Public Order Act was one and the other, which we talked about on Monday, was around clarifying the word “compel”. We felt able to make those changes because we thought that it was possible to clarify and give people the greater confidence that they wanted that the protections in the Bill are robust. However, as I said at Second Reading, we would make such changes only where we were confident that by clarifying we did not introduce something else that would then call into question what we are trying to achieve.
It is on that basis and after much careful consideration within government that we have come to the conclusion that we have. I recognise that this will be disappointing news. However, by being as clear as I can about the other efforts that we will make to ensure that there is
clarity in schools, I hope that this is of some comfort to the right reverend Prelate who moved the amendment and to all those who supported it in the Chamber this evening.