Education (Environment and Sustainable Citizenship) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2021-07-16
Topic: Other
James Philip Knight (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am most grateful to speakers on all sides of the House and all sides of the debate for their contributions. I thoroughly enjoyed the debate, and I hope that everybody else did, too. I counted 23 speakers in favour, so there is quite a lot to cover, but I shall try to be brief about it There were a number of great contributions around the importance of the connection to nature and biodiversity, from the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and the noble Lord, Lord Randall; and the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, mentioned it too, in connection with his child. The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, mentioned the natural history GCSE, and there was also the noble Lord, Lord Bourne. I enjoyed, and was very grateful for, the contributions on citizenship from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Blackstone and Lady Young Noble Lords talked about the ethos of care, which is so important in what I am trying to achieve—that was from the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Blower. In part, that is in response to what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was talking about: if we can instil that ethos of care, we will get more debate, but it will be done in a more generous way than some of the debates that see such division. I welcome the noble Baroness’s contribution, as this Chamber should not be an echo chamber; it is really important that we hear diverse opinions. I thank her for her contribution in that spirit There was a discussion of behaviour change from the noble Lord, Lord Walney, and, again, from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and on skills and jobs from the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Austin. We heard about the importance of leadership from the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, in respect of our international commitments. I was interested by the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, in respect of the devolved Governments and what we can learn from each other, and I was delighted to hear from the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, about what is already going on in Scotland and from my noble friend Lord Griffiths about what is going on in Wales. I remember, in my time as a Minister, I was more likely to be sent to Australia to learn what was going on than to be sent to Scotland or Wales. It is a shame we do not do a little bit more of that There were comments around the need for teacher support from the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, which I take very seriously. I was delighted to hear from the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, about the world’s largest lesson, as well as from the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, and the noble Lord, Lord Bhatia. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Randall, and I think the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, who were under the impression that this might apply only to secondary education, that that was answered by the noble Baronesses, Lady Wilcox and Lady Bakewell. They reminded us that the general requirements in the first part of the Bill apply to all maintained schools, both primary and secondary The noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Browne, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, mentioned evidence to your Lordships’ Environment and Climate Change Committee—I welcome the Minister’s invitation to meet them to discuss that. I think, as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said, that the phrase at the end of that, "we will be carrying out a formal assessment … over the next 9 months." is not good enough and I hope that, as a result of that meeting, a sense of urgency can be inserted into the department around what we do about this. I hope also that the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, around the space in the curriculum were in part answered by my opening but also by the noble Lord, Lord Addington I say to the Minister that I fear that, as things stand, it is too little, too late. I have also seen the letter from the chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee to the Secretary of State, sent this week, where he says, "to the best of my knowledge the last large-scale review of the National Curriculum took place between 2011-2014, and the geography and science curricula … have not been updated since 2013 and 2015 respectively. Knowledge of climate change and its impacts have grown substantially in the time since these updates" I think that Darren Jones is right to remind the Secretary of State of those things. We need to look at this urgently. Geography is an optional subject and the curriculum does not teach anything about what we do about this. That is at the core of the argument: it is all very well to learn about it, but we need young people, through schools, to learn action The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, rightly raised the question of what I mean by "we". I would say that, by "we", I mean the Church, I mean the Royal Family, I mean all the major parties in this country and I mean what we as a nation have signed up to in terms of climate change. That is "we"; that is us, and a few voices off should not distract us from the need to insert within our curriculum the knowledge, the skills and the mindset for our young people to be able to do something about it. I beg to move.