Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-07-12
Topic: Education
Joanna Penn (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I also reiterate the Government’s thanks to the right reverend Prelate, on behalf of my noble friend, for his constructive work with the department to ensure that we get these issues right in the Bill and achieve the shared aim that we all seek As the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, set out, Amendment 30 in her name seeks to add to the Bill a duty on academy schools without a religious designation to teach religion and worldviews. The amendment also provides that this teaching must be objective, critical and pluralistic. The Government believe that this amendment is unnecessary because it places into primary legislation what is already in academy trusts’ funding agreements about teaching religious education. As my noble friend Lady Barran has set out, over the summer we will undertake the necessary policy work and engagement with the sector to bring back revised clauses on academy standards, as well as the intervention and termination provisions. To achieve this, the regulatory and commissioning review that we launched on 29 June will consider, alongside other matters, academy trust regulation as we move towards a fully trust-led system. It is through those clauses that we will seek both to establish the principles on which academy standards will be based and to ensure that any powers sought provide a more clearly defined and constrained regulatory approach By contrast, this amendment would introduce a new requirement on academies to teach worldviews and dictate the nature of the religious education curriculum. We have been clear that, although that work is being undertaken, the aim none the less is for the first set of standards regulations largely to consolidate existing requirements on academies, not place more burdens on them or interfere with their freedoms. This amendment would do both However, I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and others that worldviews can already be taught as part of religious education. Indeed, on SACRE, to which he referred, the policy remains that academies and agreed syllabus conferences—I think we are talking about the same thing there—are the places that currently propose locally agreed syllabuses for RE in maintained schools; academies have their own process. The Government believe that they should be free to determine their own approach to the teaching of RE I say to the noble Lord, Lord Mann, that, as I said, existing provisions already allow worldviews to be taught as part of religious education. They also allow for other religions to be taught in maintained schools, not just Christian views. There are also other opportunities in the curriculum—for example, through PHSE lessons—for what he is looking for. The Government believe that schools already have flexibility to determine the curriculum that they think appropriate. They also have an explicit flexibility that can include non-religious worldviews as well as religious ones. Therefore, we do not think that there is any need to specify that further in the Bill; indeed, doing so would contradict our approach on earlier parts of the Bill in terms of going away, looking at academy standards and consulting the sector over the summer However, I should say to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, that, as I said before, our intention is for those standards to replicate in the first instance existing standards, which would not then change RE by widening it explicitly to include worldviews—although that is already provided for. It would also not specify the nature of how RE should be taught, which we think is best determined at the local level I hope that I have addressed the noble Baroness’s points. I know that I will have disappointed her but I will wait to hear whether she wants to move her amendment when it is reached.