Education Bill

My Lords, I want to engage in a discussion about the actual amendment and the issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, more broadly raises, rather than getting into a debate that we said we were not going to have about sex education for the under-fives. I support the thrust of this amendment, in that it is about the kind of ethos that we want our children to be brought up in. I know that some noble Lords think that it is overprescriptive and that there are other ways of getting this into the regulations, the legislation or the way that Ofsted inspect, but it is crucial that this ethos is through schools. Noble Lords will know that I spent many years setting up and establishing Childline. I spent the years I was not doing that working with children who are severely deprived or have been seriously sexually abused. I will come to that in a moment. These children are not a small minority; there is quite a sizable group of children who do not have the benefit of good, middle-class families—indeed, some families that are middle class have extraordinary difficulties, as any parent who has faced having children who are into drug or alcohol abuse will know. The one important issue for all these children is that the school can make a difference. I am involved with a group of children at the moment who have all had extraordinarily difficult backgrounds. They have been before the court either because their parents are splitting up or because they have come into care. The one thing that has made a difference to those children is their school. They are all doing well. They have the sort of starred grades at GCSE that I could only have dreamt of. They are doing well because their schools have focused on their well-being. That is why I wish the Minister and the Government would not set their minds against using the word ““well-being””. After all, I gather that the Government are looking at what makes up well-being; there is a whole piece of work that tries to analyse the elements. The noble Lord, Lord Layard, was right when he said that it was something to do with happiness, but I do not think we are supposed to encourage children to be happy in schools these days. As the right reverend Prelate pointed out, one of the main elements is the prevention of bullying, which was one of the issues that Childline dealt with most. It impedes learning substantially. All the research on bullying shows that you will not learn if you have that impediment. I know that Ofsted has child protection very high on its list because in another capacity I have been relentlessly inspected on it. I am very grateful for that; it keeps the standards up. It illustrates that having that inspection keeps those standards moving forward. When you think that you are doing well, that inspection will tell you where you are failing. That is why I have some real anxieties about schools not being inspected on their child protection measures. I was intrigued at Question Time today when we were talking about a register of electors becoming voluntary. I tried to get to my feet but did not manage it. If we are to have a voluntary register of electors, it is even more essential that we deliver good citizenship training. Only if children know that they have to register, and about voting, will they become engaged in our democracy. Therefore, I am also very keen on that. On child protection and sex education, it is absolutely crucial that children learn enough to protect themselves. If you had talked to as many children as I have who have been subject to serious grooming and abuse, in which they had no understanding of what was happening to them, you would understand that children should learn in an appropriate way—I am all for being appropriate—that that is not the kind of relationship that they should be engaged in. I just wish my colleagues would talk about relationships and sex, rather than sex and relationships. What matters is the relationship and the child understanding that relationship. I do not want to delay the House any longer; I know that we have been going on for a long time. However, I hope that the Minister and his colleagues will find some way of ensuring that these elements, which make a great difference to how children learn, can be included. He has heard me say time and again that unless a child has a secure environment, either at home or in school—where it can be made up if it is not there at home—he or she will not learn. All the research on issues to do with thriving shows it. That is what we are about: getting children a good education and making them happy.